Chapter Eleven
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Leanin’ over the creek, dreads wrung together over my back to stay out of the water, I splashed my face. The stream flowin’ through my fingers still ran reddish. I’d already washed once, before we collected rocks to entomb the goblin to keep the wolves, coyotes, a dozen other forest creatures, from feastin’ on its flesh. Should we have said a few words? Been a lot of years since Mama had dragged me to an ogre temple. Our ways are a lot less structured than lesser creatures. Do the gods need our words of farewell to accept a new soul? He’d meant us harm, but— I worked to stop that train of thought. I concentrated on my present task. Still found more blood in my dreadlocks.
Wish I’d changed out of my good jerkin before headin’ out on this cursed expedition.
“What do ya think the goblin could have told us?”
A growl gurgled up from deep inside my chest. “I told ya I had no choice.”
Ike leaned near Lucas and whispered, but I heard every word. “Just because ya can ignore my growls, don’t assume the same with our friend here.”
I pressed my hand back into the snow melt. Made my fingers ache, but the chill was kind to the vestige of my burns, no longer covered in bloody bandages. I combed my fingers through the rough columns of my hair. Each stroke resulted in blood-covered fingers. Useless. I might as well lie down in the stream and allow it to wash over me. Not too wise, further wettin’ my hair—or clothes. It’s gonna get chilly tonight, as high as we are in the mountains.
I turned to Lucas who pulled kindlin’ together for a fire, though we hadn’t completed collectin’ enough wood to keep us till mornin’. A sense of impatience, irritation—no it was stronger than irritation—ratcheted through me. I walked from the creek bed and quickly found what I wanted, a recently fallen tree. I held out my staff and the power surged. I visualized a shorter segment of the log collapsin’ into four equal wedges and thrust my fist toward it. A lightenin’-like bolt flashed from the ram’s head of my staff and split the trunk with a crash.
I stood lookin’ at the smolderin’ shards. Frankly, shocked. I’d just been, I think, playin’ a game in my head, pressed on by my anger.
Another instance of wieldin’ majic in a way I’d never before used it.
I used more, draggin’ the four lengths untouched behind me as I walked the thirty steps back to our camp. Ike and the human stood and glared.
My face flushed with heat. “Felt ya might as well know why I’ve spent my life alone in the forest.”
“With that talent, I have no problem bringin’ ya into the Hamlet,” Ike mumbled. “I always hated splittin’ firewood.”
“Don’t let yar axe dull,” I said softly.
“Tis a shame.”
For some reason that struck me funny and I chuckled. Ike smiled. Lucas chortled, and motioned to the pyramid of kindlin’.
Why not? I had certainly used that majic before.
I visualized the spark of a flint catchin’ the lichen, and the pile smoldered. “I’ve done the hard part. Ya have enough hot wind, can do the blowin’.”
“Slave tasker.” Lucas leaned down and coerced the kindlin’ into flames, addin’ to the fire as it grew. “So what are we gonna do now?”
“Find a dwarf to trail our dead friend back to where he left his buddies,” I said.
“There’s an idea,” Ike said.
“Or better—” Lucas poked a stick into the growin’ flames. “Return home and collect a gang to back us up, now we know they don’t have friendly intentions. I doubt they’ll be any friendlier since we killed one of their kind.”
“They’ll not know that,” I said.
Ike nodded as he sank into the pine needles, teeth still gnashin’ a chunk of jerky. “A gang could wander these forests for months and never find anythin’. The more heads, the slower the progress. I suspect those long-legged goblins can cover a lot of territory.”
“So says the old stories—those of the wars.” Lucas scrunched up his face, as though rememberin’ frightenin’ tales told in front of the winter hearth.
A breeze swirled through the darkenin’ limbs above us and the three of us looked up in concert. Lucas pulled his jacket together. The night was gonna be hardest on the human. At this elevation, their kind, nothin’ but spindly creatures without enough meat on their bones to keep them warm.
“I predict an earlier freeze than last season,” Lucas mumbled. He pulled an apple from a jacket pocket and used his huntin’ knife to slice it into three wedges. He tossed one each to me and Ike, who grunted our thanks.
“Goblins hate the cold too, don’t they?” I looked at Ike, assumin’ him to be the resident expert on the race, considerin’ he calls one a friend.
Ike and I said together, “Bet they sleep with a big fire goin’.”
Lucas and Ike looked at each other meanin’fully. Their jaws stopped munchin’ on their apple slices and they looked into the eastern sky.
“What?” As I asked the question I believe I had my own answer.
From the air, dragons would be able to see a good fire from quite a distance. Multiple, large fires, even through the trees.
“We have a sliver of moon tonight,” Ike said. “Ya better ask Iza. Don’t think Taiz’lin will be over his snit.”
“Never spoken with Iza so far away,” Lucas mumbled. “I think she joined Taiz’lin at the lair.”
The young human stood. His eyes seemed to glaze over in concentration, but that could have been reflection from the growin’ fire. The moments passed.
“She’s probably asleep,” he said.
“Then wake her.” I grasped my staff and stood next to Lucas, takin’ one of the human’s hands in my free one.
I felt Lucas’ emotions flow into me as though they were my own. I jerked in irritation at a vision of Delia—struggled to focus on the golden dragon. The dragon’s name wafted through my mind. I added my voice to Lucas’. Felt nothin’ outside the fringes of my mind’s eye. I pulled more power from the ethereal, until the staff shook in my hand.
Iza. Iza. Iza, the two of us called together.
I sensed myself levitatin’ off the ground, though I’m pretty sure not really, Lucas’ hand still in mine. We floated upward through the dark canopy and soared north. I could only make out the horizon. Trees hid in the shadows, though after blockin’ the moon’s glint from my eyes I made out the silver tinge of its glow below on the tips of the pines. Our speed increased. In moments the surface of Black Lake mirrored the sky, yet we continued on, past the enormous snowcapped peak that represented the southern boundary of the human’s, elves, and dwarves realm for two millennia.
I considered breakin’ the contact. Lucas demonstrated no concern though, so I continued. The peaks diminished. A broad savanna opened up before us and we dove toward the Earth. I sensed our destination on a last promontory overlookin’ the plain below. Had to be the lair Lucas mentioned.
I didn’t make out the lair among the granite until we—landed, as though aback a dragon. It became completely black. But I felt the dragon’s drowsy mind, fightin’ us, not wantin’ to wake.
“I have a job for ya,” Lucas told the dragon.
“Go away. I’m sleepin’. There’s nothin’ I would be willin’ to do for ya now.”
I felt Lucas’ humor lighten his heart.
“Tisn’t for me. The whole Hamlet. They may be in danger.”
“It can wait until the sun rises,” she answered, a snipe of words that stung.
Lucas continued, explainin’ what he wanted. The dragon growled, and bugled, spoke to someone else. I reached out to discover who. The gray dragon lay tucked under one of the golden’s broad wings.
The queen dragon bickered. Lucas cajoled. The dragon refused. Lucas pressed the danger to Gladdie, a name I recognized. The image of a tiny, delicate creature with blond, nearly-white pony tails, bright-blue eyes, entered my mind. The dragon thrust its head toward the ceilin’ of the lair and trumpeted angrily, the sound reverberatin’ in my mind, a knife through the back of my skull.
“Not fair,” she complained.
“Then protect her. Find those who would harm her.”
I opened my eyes to pinpoints of light. Stars. I lay flat on the ground. A dull ache pressed upon my head. I leaned forward.
Ike glared, leanin’ over me, fists on his hips. “Well?”
Impatient stinkin’ ogre. A wave of vertigo washed over me. When it passed, I found Lucas lyin’ catawampus to me. Lucas opened his eyes and shook his head.
“That was rude of her,” I mumbled.
“They have a strong sense of themselves,” Ike said. “Is she gonna do it?”
Lucas didn’t answer for several moments. He moved to his blanket before I did. “We’ll know when we see her silhouette in the sky.”
“Remind me never to send ya to the troll council to talk ’em out of somethin’.” Ike spun around and returned to where he’d been sittin’. He grumbled under his breath. “Can’t even get his own dragon-mate to make one little flight, with plenty of moon.”
Lucas said, “She flew before with no moon, for Gladdie. She’ll fly.”
“Ohhh. Ya didn’t draw on that card did ya? Aren’t ya afraid ya’ll use that one up?”
“I figure once a year I’m safe.”
Ike shook his head and threw somethin’ into the fire with more energy than he needed. Sparks circled into the air. Lucas held his hands out toward the fire. Since we first worked to contact Iza the temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees. How long had we tranced? That seemed like a good word for what we did. Lucas shivered hard. The human wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. I rolled off my fur, carried it to him, and laid it over him.
“No. That’s okay.”
“Ya need it more than me,” I muttered, lyin’ back and grindin’ my hips into the pine needles, pullin’ my dreadlocks over my face, glad it’s summer. No wonder I rarely trek into the highlands to hunt. But then again, there are always deer and elk, a pronghorn or two, in the valleys near home.
Thoughts of Delia, as a friendly neighbor, crossed my mind. I had believed she was beautiful. The way Lucas looked at her, thinks of her, proves I was right. Her tiny bruised feet came to mind, the way her soft flesh felt in my hands when I treated her cuts.
A snore from, Ike probably, disturbed my thoughts. Colder than I expected. Should have carried two furs. But then again, I prolly would have given them both to Lucas.
I woke to the sound of Lucas pullin’ a foot or two of the split log into the fire. I sensed satisfaction in the young human’s heart. The dragon had located camp fires. Not just one, but several clumped together. I mentally shrugged. Somethin’ to worry about in the mornin’.
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