by Zoe Chant
"No ... no ... Dad ..." Ben swiped his wet hair out of his eyes. "It's not that. That's the distraction. He's going after Tessa and Loretta while you're away."
Darius's claws convulsed. Ben gasped in pain; the rock fingers left bruises as they cracked away. "What?"
"I heard him giving orders to these creatures. He's sending them to wherever Tessa and Loretta are."
"Darius!" Anjelica shouted. "We've cleared the way for you! Get him out of there."
"Hold onto me," Darius told Ben absently, while his mind whirled around this new information and his heart beat a rapid tattoo of Find Loretta, find Loretta, find Loretta. She was okay at the moment, not hurt or scared; that much he could tell. But she might not be for long.
Ben wrapped his arms around Darius's neck, and Darius dropped away from the cliff, remembering only as he spread his wings that he might not be able to fly with this much damage, especially with the extra weight. But there was no choice. He had to get Ben away from the stoneskins quickly.
His wings snapped out with a booming crack like a ship's sails catching the wind, and he clenched his jaws on a scream of pain as the damaged bones and membranes took his weight. One of his wings smacked into the cliff and he nearly went into a tailspin. Catching his breath, he fought for altitude—and then suddenly he was no longer bearing his and Ben's entire weight alone. One of Heikon's dragons had moved underneath him, buoying him up despite the risk of having its own wings entangled with his and taking them both down to destruction.
One of Heikon's dragons ... no. He knew this dragon, her sleek emerald-green scales with gold patterns, like sunlight through summer leaves.
"Esme," he said in surprise.
She released him at the top of the cliff and they glided down to land in a meadow together, the rain-damp grass bending under them. Ben slumped to the ground, panting, and Darius shifted back to put a hand on his son's shoulder. Esme shifted as well. She'd been fighting; her hair was disheveled and there was a bruise on her cheek.
"You came back," Darius said, looking up at her.
"I never left," she retorted archly. "To be honest, I thought you might be dead after the mansion exploded. I had, shall we say, other things on my mind at that time. Then Melody let me know you'd been in touch with her, so I decided to stick around in case you needed a hand. I know how you are about asking for help." She glanced up as one of Heikon's dragons soared over them, carrying a stoneskin in its claws, and released it to shatter on the ground below. "How you used to be about asking for help," she amended.
"I've changed, I think."
"I think you have," Esme conceded, looking down at him with an expression that was both wistful and resigned. "She's good for you—this Loretta."
"And she's in danger." He straightened, trying to shake off the ache of his injuries. "Esme, I need you to—"
"Look out!" Ben snapped, yanking on Darius's jacket and pulling him off balance as a stoneskin swooped through the air above them, slashing with its claws.
Esme shifted and reared up to swat it out of the air. But they'd been found. The ground around them cracked and erupted with more stoneskins.
Darius shifted to fight, standing protectively over Ben. How many can there be? he thought as he smashed stoneskins with his forepaws, using his wings to shield Ben from the flying shards of rock. Sharpe wasn't here—at least, there was no sign of him so far. In the absence of their master, the stoneskins would continue to act on the last set of orders they'd been given, which was probably to attack any intruders. And there would be no new ones being created, the way a master gargoyle could create stoneskins from solid rock. Still, it seemed like Sharpe hadn't skimped on his guards.
"We have to get out of here," Ben protested, struggling to his feet using Darius's scaled shoulder for support. "Got to get to Skye and Tessa—Loretta—" He broke off, pressing a hand to his side.
"You can barely stand, let alone fight." Esme backed up so she was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Darius, where they could protect each other. She could easily have flown away—this wasn't her fight. Ben wasn't even her son; he was Darius's child by Avril, his other ex. Yet here she was.
Loyalty. He'd never known how much of it he truly had until losing everything else.
And he could not, would not lose more.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, fear spiked—fear that was not his own. He was running out of time.
Loretta—!
"Damn it!" Esme exclaimed, the curse rumbling from her big green-and-gold dragon's body. They were besieged by stoneskins on all sides. Even if Darius could somehow manage to take off, he feared he'd be pulled back down by grasping stone hands.
But even as he thought it, there was a rumbling that shook the ground underneath. Ben groaned and leaned on Darius's side. Now what? Darius thought, furious. Maybe Sharpe had arrived to back up his minions. But it didn't sound like an earthquake. It sounded more like ... hooves ...?
"Ah!" Esme exclaimed, and attacked the stoneskins in front of her with renewed vigor. "It sounds like the rest of our backup just arrived."
What the hell ...?
With a tremendous rumble of pounding hoofbeats, a huge shaggy beast with long sweeping horns charged into the middle of the stoneskins, flinging them right and left with swipes of its great head. Darius realized that he was laughing out loud, an incongruous sound coming from a dragon's throat. He hadn't been wrong earlier. He'd thought he'd felt Maddox somewhere nearby. But it was impossible, he'd thought; Maddox had been blown up and buried under a ton of rock ...
"It's about time," Esme declared, swatting stoneskins right and left with her front paws as she crouched on her hindquarters. "I certainly hoped you wouldn't make me regret pulling you out of that firestorm."
The huge, shaggy Highland ox snorted and tossed his head, smashing another stoneskin beneath his enormous hooves. Darius had rarely seen his bodyguard transformed, and he was impressed all over again by Maddox's massive size. This was a bull who might actually be able to take on a dragon, at least half again as big as the largest of normal oxen, with horns straight out of an Ice Age cave painting.
But he was also limping severely, Darius realized. One of his rear legs was splinted, his fur singed. He clearly had been hurt in the explosion, and Darius didn't want to think about what kind of damage he was doing to his obviously injured back leg, running around on it like that. And he and Esme were terribly outnumbered. Darius hesitated.
"What are you waiting for?" Esme demanded. "Go help them! We'll round up Heikon's dragons and come after you."
As Darius began to spread his wings, Ben weakly grabbed hold of Darius's scaled leg. "Tessa! I have to be there—"
"He can fly much faster without you," Esme told him. She hooked a huge clawed forepaw around him and pulled him gently away from Darius. "We'll bring you, don't worry. Darius, go! We'll be right behind you."
Darius beat down with his wings, hardly feeling the pain. As he launched himself into the air, he saw Heikon's dragons mobilizing for an attack. Esme and Ben and Maddox would be all right; they had help coming. All he could think about now was Loretta and his urgent need to get to her. Because he could tell, through the freshly forged link between them, that she was in trouble. Sharpe's attack on Heikon's lair had already begun.
Chapter Twenty-One: Loretta
Tessa arrived at Heikon's fortress—the Aerie, Loretta reminded herself it was called—riding on the back of an iridescent violet dragon and bundled in a coat that was too big for her, with Skye held securely in her arms. Loretta hugged her as soon as she slid off the dragon, and Tessa clung to her one-armed while Skye squirmed between them.
"Darius will get Ben back, Tessa," Loretta said into her hair. "He will. I trust him."
Tessa gave a wet little laugh against her shoulder. "I trust him too. That's the crazy thing. I even sort of trust Heikon."
"Well, that's a pleasing thing to hear since I'm giving you refuge," Heikon said dryly from behind Loretta. He moved
so silently that she hadn't even heard him approach. "How are you, my former Heart?"
"Better now, I guess." Tessa moved out of Loretta's embrace, straightening her shoulders. "Where are my cats?"
"Here," declared a heavyset woman in purple leather who had been the violet dragon, holding the plaintively yowling carriers distastefully. "What shall I do with them, my lord?"
"Have them taken to this woman's quarters," Heikon instructed her. "Then go see Reive about the defenses."
"Don't let them out of the carriers yet!" Tessa called after her. "I don't want them running loose when I'm not there—oh—dammit, is anyone even listening to me? So," she went on, rounding on Heikon while Loretta watched in amusement, "I have quarters now, huh? What is this place anyway?"
"It's the Aerie. My ancestral family home." Heikon waved a hand about with a flourish. "Humans are never allowed here. You should be very honored."
"Oh, is this the one they threw you out of when your brother tried to depose you?"
"Quite the tongue on this one," Heikon told Loretta. "Beware of getting on the sharp side of it. Ah, and this is little Skye! Growing up so fast. She can see Feodran while she's here."
"You are not betrothing my daughter to your grandson, Heikon. I mean it."
"Ah, well. You can't blame a grandfather for trying," Heikon said with no particular rancor. "Come this way, enjoy the gardens, have something to eat."
Loretta had already had an early lunch while waiting for Tessa, but after checking on Tessa's cats for her, she went ahead and joined her in the garden. With most of an uneaten sandwich and pastry in front of her, Tessa was sitting on a garden bench, breastfeeding Skye.
"This place is amazing, isn't it?" Loretta said, sitting down beside her. Around them, the gardens drowsed in the sun. An adolescent dragon soared overhead, or at least Loretta guessed it was a kid from the smaller size and generally gangly look of its overly long neck and narrow wings. She tried not to think about where Darius and Ben were right now.
"I guess," Tessa said, jiggling Skye against her shoulder. Loretta held out her arms and Tessa passed the baby over to her, and then picked up the pastry, put it back down, and reached for her coffee cup instead. "I really do appreciate Heikon's help. But all I can think about is Ben. You don't suppose Darius could maybe call us with news every once in a while, do you?"
"This is Darius we're talking about here. No news is good news."
Tessa smiled wanly and picked apart her pastry. She glanced up nervously as another dragon soared over.
Loretta couldn't help noticing that the dragons seemed a little bit riled up. She stood up and went over to the railing where she had a better view down the terraced gardens, and now it was evident that the dragon kids were being gathered in from where they were playing.
"What's wrong?" Tessa asked from behind her.
"I don't know. Nothing, I hope."
But there was an ominous feeling in the air, like a sense of impending menace. She couldn't really put her finger on what was wrong.
"It's so quiet," Tessa said under her breath.
She was right, Loretta thought. The garden had been full of the sound of singing birds, chirring insects, and the distant cries of playing children. Now there was an ominous hush, like the tense quiet before a tornado.
"I think we should get inside," Loretta said. She handed Skye back to Tessa so she had her hands free. She wasn't sure exactly why she needed her hands free—it wasn't like she could fight those monsters she'd seen the previous night. The dragons could protect them more effectively than anything Loretta could hope to do. But she still didn't want to be encumbered. She had to try.
As they started for the door into the mountain, Heikon appeared suddenly from one of the garden paths, blocking their route. "Not in there," he said, herding them away.
"What? Why?" But then she knew. "The rock. It's not safe."
"We've had reports of stoneskins emerging from the rock farther down the mountain," Heikon said. "The scouts are pulling back now. We don't dare make our stand inside." He grimaced. "I admit I was foolish, or perhaps I was simply too confident in the inviolability of my own fortress. I didn't truly think it would come to this."
"I'm so sorry," Loretta said. "You're only in danger because you tried to help us."
"Honor would let me do no less. Anyway, someone as warlike as this Sharpe would be a danger to my kind no matter what. He's not going to stop with wiping out Darius's clan, I guarantee it." He escorted the women underneath an arbor covered with grape vines. "I realize this is poor protection, but at least you won't be visible from the air."
"What are you going to do?" Loretta asked, putting an arm around Tessa. "Aren't most of your fighters with Darius?"
Heikon showed his teeth in something that was not a smile. "Oh, I assure you, we are far from helpless. It's true that most of the defenders we have left are our young people and the old or sick, but we have prepared for this."
"Can we help?"
"Not for now. You can't shift, and you can't fight. I'll tell you if there is anything you can do."
With no more warning than that, he shifted. She'd thought he was huge when she had seen him flying with the others, but now he seemed to fill the world, blocking out her view of the garden and what little of the sky could be seen through the arbor. Unlike Darius with his sleek, gleaming scales, Heikon's dragon's body was scarred with numerous mementos of past fights, marring its blue-silver sheen.
"I will send Reive down to defend you if I can spare him," Heikon rumbled, looking down at them. "Otherwise, stay hidden."
He beat down and lifted off, rising into the sky while the women stumbled back, shielding their eyes from swirling clouds of dust.
"They're so big," Tessa said, staring after him as she absently rocked Skye against her shoulder. "I never quite get used to that."
And yet, a dragon nearly that large—Darius's dragon—had almost died trying to fight the stoneskins by himself.
Hopefully Darius and the others are keeping most of them occupied somewhere else, she thought. Darius, be safe! And please hurry up and get here soon!
"Look!" Tessa gasped, freeing a hand from the baby in her arms to point upward.
At first Loretta didn't see what she was talking about. And then she glimpsed small dots in the sky, silhouetted against the clouds massing to the west—the direction Darius had gone, she thought; they were probably getting rained on over there.
Darius and Heikon's dragons? Her heart lifted for an instant, until she realized these were not sleek dragon shapes; they were lumpy and odd, looking twisted and misshapen against the backdrop of clouds.
Gargoyles.
"They're flying here?" Tessa said in surprise. "I thought they came out of the ground."
"They can do both." Loretta risked a few quick steps out of the shelter of the arbor so she could look over the railing again, down the mountainside. Darius had said that stoneskins needed someone nearby to give them orders. Did that mean Sharpe was coming here? Surely they could do at least a few things independently, or the gargoyle army wouldn't be able to split its forces at all.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a sudden Boom! rattled the mountainside, and Tessa gave a yelp from the arbor. Loretta looked around wildly. It had come from somewhere low on the slopes, but it was mostly forest down there with scattered patches of farmland. There was another explosion, and another, rattling the ground under her and sending rocks clattering down the hillside. She couldn't figure out what was happening until she saw one of the explosions, a fountain of sand and rocks and smoke blossoming suddenly on the lower slopes of the mountain, and then she figured it out.
"What's happening?" Tessa cried.
"Land mines," Loretta said, amazed. "They've got land mines down there."
If the stoneskins traveled through the ground somehow, which they seemed to do, the mines would stop them. And explosives on the ground would pose no threat at all to dragons who came and went by flyi
ng. Loretta's heart lifted in cautious optimism.
But there were still the flying stoneskins to contend with, and they were close now. Loretta watched from below as the dragons met them in the sky. The dragons were outnumbered, but faster and more agile. They dove in, smashing the stoneskins' wings, and then darted away as the stoneskins plummeted to shatter on the ground.
We're going to win this! she thought.
But she'd counted victory too soon. Just down the hill from her, a rocky outcropping suddenly heaved and lurched and a stoneskin fell out of it. After crouching for a moment, it stood up, wobbled a bit, and then galloped up the hill on all fours.
A dragon—Heikon; Loretta recognized his steely blue color—scooped up a boulder in his claws and dropped it with unerring aim on the running stoneskin. It shattered into a thousand pieces of broken stone, but then—she gasped aloud as the boulder itself dissolved into another stoneskin, replacing the destroyed one.
They're not just traveling through the rock. They're being made from the rock!
She backed away from the railing in horror. How could they fight a threat like that? The very stone around them could hold an infinite number of enemies.
The violet dragon from earlier thumped to the ground. "Where is the human mother and child?" she demanded. "We are taking the hatchlings to a nearby lake, where we hope they will be safe; these stone monsters cannot swim. The rest of us plan to stay and fight."
"Loretta, no—" Tessa began.
Loretta gave her a swift hug and offered her a hand onto the dragon's back. "You need to go with them. Keep Skye safe. It's the best thing you can do right now."
Once mother and child were securely on her back, the violet dragon launched skyward. Two more dragons swung instantly into action to hold off the flying gargoyles so she could get away. Pieces of stone rained down, and Loretta shielded her head and ducked under the arbor.
The situation had grown considerably more dire just in the short time she'd been distracted. There were fewer dragons in the sky now; she hoped that meant they'd gone to help ferry the children to the lake, and not that the dragons were taking heavy casualties. Worse, there were quite a number of stoneskins on the ground, and more coming all the time. For every one the dragons managed to drop a boulder on, two more were born—and as she'd seen already, the boulders themselves could be worse than nothing.