Dragon Spear (12 page)

“What under the Triunity are you talking about?”

Glaring down at me, and not needing my outburst to continue, Darrym went on.

“The granddaughter of the first queen had two daughters of her own, born of the same egg,” he said. “Mystics divined that it was Aurania who was to be queen, but some of us believed that this was not so. Her sister, Verania, was wiser, and so our ancestors followed her into exile here, on the far side of the world. But now Verania’s daughter’s daughter’s daughter’s daughter has died, and we have no one to bless us. We decided to bring the false queen here to help us, because her blood is still royal, even if it derives from the lesser sister.”

“I see,” was all I could say.

Darrym snorted as though he didn’t believe that a human ever could see what he was talking about. But I did understand: twins, hatched from the same egg, had created a rift between two factions of dragons. And these were the remainders of the losing side, I supposed. Their numbers diminished, and their queen was dead. So they went after what they considered the next best thing.

Velika.

“Now, why are you here?” Darrym’s muddy brown eyes stared into mine.

“To rescue my friend Velika,” I said boldly. “From you.”

“Impudence!”

“Oh, really? Let me remind you that when we first met, Master Darrym, you were lying on the Citatian shore with a collar around your neck pretending to be wounded so that you wouldn’t have to fight! Shardas himself uncollared you, I helped you to find a home with Shardas and Velika, and this is how you repay us? If I am impudent, what are you?”

Another snort, and a flap of wings as Darrym flew away without answering my questions.

“He’s gone,” I told Leontes when the sound of Darrym’s wings had faded.

“This is too much to digest immediately,” the alchemist replied. “I must ponder his story as I scrape at the rock.”

“I agree.”

In silence we tore away the rest of the wall, and in silence we waited for night to fall. Once it was dark, Hagen and I mounted Leontes’s broad shoulder and soared into the night sky, circled the column of smoke once to prevent detection, and went to tell Shardas what we had found.

Spears of Black Glass

N
ever do that again!”

If I’d thought that Hagen’s earlier hugging was bone-breaking, it was nothing compared to what I got from Luka when we reached our camp. He practically dragged me off Leontes’s neck, but I didn’t mind. I was already leaping to meet him as the dragon touched the sand. We both squeezed each other and kissed and swore never to be parted again (and in Luka’s case, occasionally just swore).

“I didn’t mean to be captured,” I told him, when I could breathe.

“But it does seem to happen to you with some frequency,” Shardas put in. He came forward and whuffed at my clothes to reassure himself that I was all right.

“Twice is not ‘some frequency,’ ” I said, my cheeks blazing. “And I’ve gotten myself free both times, thank you very much.”

“With a dragon’s help,” Luka pointed out, and I gave him a quelling look, so he squeezed my waist again.

“And now the dragons need our help,” I said, leaning against Luka’s side. “We have to get Velika out of there. They’re keeping her sedated, and if she doesn’t come to accept living here and being their queen, they’re going to keep the hatchlings and train them to do what they want.”

Shardas barely managed to turn his head away before he let loose a burst of blue flame. It turned a long streak of sand to our right into a smooth glass plate.

Letting go of Luka, I went to stand beside the king of the dragons. I regretted blurting out what I had learned in that way, but Shardas needed to know. I put one hand on his fore-claw, drawing his angry blue gaze down to myself.

“We will rescue her and the eggs. We will.”

“She’s right,” Leontes said. “I’ve seen where they’re keeping Velika, and I have gotten a good count of the dragons that frequent that area. We can do this, Shardas.”

“How? When?”

I had never seen Shardas so frustrated, so helpless.

“We’ll go tomorrow night, after Hagen has helped me to prepare some mixtures,” Leontes declared. “And in the meantime, I need you and my dear mate to make us some long spears of glass.”

“Glass?” I wasn’t the only one who said it with a look of disbelief.

“This sand will make very hard, very sharp glass, as we’ve just witnessed,” Leontes said, pointing to the smooth slab Shardas had just unintentionally made. “It will come in handy for what I have in mind.”

Shardas gave him a suspicious look. “Are you certain that you aren’t just trying to occupy me with useless chores?”

“Quite.” Leontes paused. “Some of the others might help as well.”

Smoke still coming from his nostrils, Shardas finally turned and designated some glassmakers, taking them over to a large patch of particularly rough sand. Meanwhile, Luka, Hagen, and I followed Leontes up the ridge of rock to where he had set up his working space.

“
Is
it just a meaningless task?” I asked.

“Oh, no. We really will use them. But it has the added benefit of keeping Shardas busy,” Leontes admitted cheerfully. “They will no doubt make far more glass than we could ever possibly use.”

“Is this the first time that dragons will carry weapons into battle?” Luka picked up a strange brass instrument and studied it.

“Yes,” Leontes said, taking the thing away from him and setting it carefully into the leather-bound chest with his other tools. “And it will also be the first time that dragons have gone into battle against one another without coercion. Which is why I must make medicine now.”

This effectively silenced us, and we spent the next few hours fetching and carrying. We brought driftwood for Leontes to burn in a little fire pit with the smoke screened through a blanket. We brought him the scraggly moss that grew in the crevices of the rocky islet, and shells that had washed up on shore. At Niva’s urging, we also brought him some freshly caught and grilled fish to eat, though he grumbled at the interruption. Things were ground, boiled, mixed, pounded, strained, and steeped until well after dark.

The next day I spent most of my time down on the beach with Shardas and the other glassmakers. Luka wouldn’t let me out of his sight, something that I appreciated, but at the same time it prevented me from working on my wedding gown. I kept it by my side, though, in its basket, almost as a good-luck charm more than anything else.

As far as I could tell, there were already more glass spears than anyone would know how to deal with, and yet Shardas and the others continued to make them. Stack after stack of the rough, lumpy things lay on the beach, and there were now great pits where the sand had been hardened and dug up.

It was fascinating to watch, though.

Laying their muzzles parallel to the sand, the dragons would each send out a long, narrow lick of flame. The sand would melt and then harden into a lightning bolt of black glass. A dragon would scoop it up, run its claws over it to snap off any stray obtrusions and brush off the extra sand, and lay it carefully on the pile.

The stack of glass spears bothered me, though I tried not to show it. Instead I admired the look of the melting sand, and the fine fire control of the dragons. I didn’t want to think about my friends using weapons against their own kind, even if the other dragons had kidnapped Velika.

Luka came up beside me, and I took his hand. “I want another look at that map that you and Leontes drew,” he said. He, too, was staring at the pile of spears with a faintly alarmed expression.

“All right.” I stretched up and gave him a kiss.

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

I smiled at him, hoping that it wasn’t as goofy-looking an expression as I felt. It was just so strange and wonderful for him to be so . . .
worried
about me.

“Luka, I’m with Shardas, and Niva, and half a dozen other dragons I’ve known for years. I’ll be just fine.” I felt my smile turn more mischievous. “Besides, I can’t stop fidgeting, and I absolutely have to work on my wedding gown.”

“All right.” Another kiss and he reluctantly left.

I turned around to find Shardas watching us, and blushed.

“He loves you very much,” the king of the dragons said.

“I know. And I love him.”

“You will be very happy together,” Shardas told me. “And I will see to it, personally, that you do not encounter such difficulties as Velika and I have faced.” His eyes clouded, and he turned and shot a jet of flame that made a longer, thicker spear than the others. He picked it up with a quick swipe, hefted it, and set it near his tail, where it could be easily reached.

“I think that’s enough spears,” I said, awkward.

“There will never be enough,” Shardas said. “Never enough to ensure that Velika is brought safely home.”

A River of Molten Rock

L
eontes and Shardas had discussed using an illusion to disguise the rescue party as local dragons. But it was off-putting to look over at your friends and see them small and brown even if the trees far above were being pushed aside by their real height. And looking down at oneself and seeing claws that were unfamiliar would make for clumsy movements and awkward throws. No, for a mission of this delicacy, it was better to get the job done without alchemy, so the force that set out in the darkness was certainly impressive: jewel-toned scales, muted by moonlight, flashing on dragons the size of houses carrying long, black spears in their foreclaws.

I rode on Shardas, Luka on Niva, and Hagen was on Leontes. Feniul brought up the rear. We had all our gear with us, strapped down as tightly as it could be, and anything that wasn’t essential had been dumped. Once we got Velika free we would signal to Amacarin, who was in command of the rest of our force. They would spread out over the forest to guard us against any pursuit until we were safely on our way back over the ocean.

Crouched low on Shardas’s neck, I gazed down at the moonlit forest and tried not to let my worry overwhelm me. If we got Velika free, how would we carry her out of there? The crevice that led to her underground chamber was hardly wide enough to fit a large dragon, let alone one supporting another, and she would be lethargic from the drug they were giving her.

Still, we would have to find a way.

We swooped low over the treetops, following the pink torchlight that showed the way to the underground chamber. It wasn’t visible until you were nearly on top of it, so I felt the jolt as one of Shardas’s spears caught in a tree and he had to drag it free. All around us, spoiling our silent, menacing entrance, were the sounds of tails and spears snagging trees, and even the occasional murmured curse.

But then we were there, with the ring of pink torches lighting the clearing beneath us, and the rift in the ground plainly visible not only because of the torches and the moonlight, but also because of the orange glow from deep below.

“That’s it,” I said to Shardas, unnecessarily.

Clasping the spears tight, he arrowed down into the crevice. We were both blinded by the smoke, and I counted to five before calling for him to halt, not wanting to find myself plunged into the river of molten rock or smashed on the floor.

He backwinged, bringing us out of the smoke and to one side about two man-heights from the floor. Leontes, Niva, and Feniul came down after us, crowding the chamber despite its size. I calculated that about a dozen local dragons could fit inside it, but with four of my friends, there was not enough room to spread their wings. They all began to drop to the floor, careful of the river of lava, and of Velika, who lay on her rustic couch, shuddering.

“Velika!” I kicked at Shardas’s neck as though he were a horse, urging him toward her.

Something was wrong: her sides heaved and her tail beat an anxious tattoo on the rough stone floor. Her eyes were shut and her jaws clenched with pain.

“What’s happening?”

“The eggs!” Shardas’s voice was full of anguish. “Our eggs!”

Leontes leaped over the burning rift in the floor and rushed to Velika’s side, Hagen clinging white-faced to his neck. Niva was on his heels, after sending Feniul back to the surface to order the others to stand guard. She crouched at Velika’s head and began a soothing croon. Did dragons have midwives? If so, I couldn’t imagine a better pair than an alchemist and a no-nonsense female with a clutch of children of her own.

But Shardas did not go to his mate’s side. Shardas sagged there, on the wrong side of the burning river, and stared. The black glass spears clattered to the rock floor, and a terrible keening cry broke from him.

I swung down from his neck. “What’s wrong?”

“We cannot move her now,” he moaned. “She, and the eggs, will have to stay here.”

I looked at him, then at Velika, then at Luka, who had climbed down from Niva and come to stand beside me. I twisted the ends of my sash. We couldn’t leave her here; there had to be a way to get her to safety.

“A net?” My voice was a squeak. “You could carry her out in a net, couldn’t you?”

“Absolutely not,” Niva barked. “Leave the poor thing alone to have her clutch!” She looked daggers at Shardas. “And you: get over here and comfort her. Now.”

When Niva used that tone of voice, you obeyed, whether you were the king of the dragons or not. Shardas lifted me over the rift, and then hopped over himself. He went to Velika’s head, stroking her brow and murmuring to her, and Niva took up position near the queen’s foreclaws, holding them tightly. Hagen, Luka, and I stood there, not certain what we should do.

“Well,” Luka said, clearing his throat. “Er.”

“How long until she and the babies can be moved?” Hagen asked the most useful question. “And how long until they hatch, anyway?”

“Three months until they hatch,” said Leontes, and we humans groaned. “But they can be moved before then. In two weeks or so.”

“Two weeks?” I frowned. “Why not now? What difference will two weeks make?”

“The eggs will not be hard when they come out,” Leontes said. “But in two weeks they will be like the thickest stoneware.”

“Like stoneware? Hardly!” Darrym came out of the passage at the back of the chamber, the one that I had once again failed to watch. “Moving them would be murder at any stage! They are more delicate than birds’ eggs.”