Dragon Spear (6 page)
“We shall leave you to it, then,” Shardas said.
Luka and I scrambled back onto his neck, and the king of the dragons leaped into the air without so much as a goodbye for Darrym and his herd of strange charges. I thought this just a bit rude of Shardas, even considering Darrym’s odd behavior. I said so as diplomatically as I could once we had returned to the gardens where we had left Hagen.
“He is rather grating on my nerves,” Shardas admitted. “He seems to think himself above work of any kind, and I often catch him standing on the path near my cave for no reason.”
“I wonder what was in that bag?” Luka said.
“I’m sure he was sitting on one of the cliff ledges, eating or reading and ignoring the goats,” Shardas said, his voice dismissive. “And didn’t want us to know.”
“I suppose,” Luka said, but he sounded doubtful.
I was doubtful as well. Darrym hadn’t seen us until after he’d come up over the cliff lip, and there was no reason why someone assigned to sit and watch the goats all day couldn’t be reading or eating while they did so. I wanted very much to know what was in that bag.
“You have to try some of this,” Hagen said, running up to us with Roginet at his heels. Hagen thrust a bizarre, spiky fruit into my hands. “It grows wild here, and I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
We all cut off sections of the fruit, which was shockingly tart but delicious, and then it was time to join Velika on the beach for supper. Soon, gorged on roasted pork and honey melons, I forgot all about Darrym.
A
nd I will take Creel to our cave and show her some of your glass,” Velika said.
“And then you should rest,” Shardas reminded her.
“I will rest,” she agreed.
We had been down at the beach most of the day, watching Shardas blow glass. Feniul and Ria had joined us, along with their hatchlings and various dogs, and we had watched the dragonlets and their pets run races and play in the water until they were all exhausted and lying in a heap in the shade of a giant palm tree.
The rest of us talked about the different animals that lived on the islands and how often the dragons could hope to export some of them—like the noisy birds—in exchange for the things they couldn’t get here. Luka liked Shardas’s story of having found the birds in the water after a storm had blown them from wherever their home might be, but Velika and I argued that there were only so many times that story could be used before people grew suspicious.
But now we were all feeling drowsy, and Shardas was urging his mate to return to their cave and have a nap. I had chimed in that I still hadn’t seen their home, and would accompany her.
“I need to work on my gown anyway,” I said. “I’ll run by the hut and get it, and meet you farther up the path.”
Velika moved so slowly that I didn’t have to run at all to reach my little stone hut, gather up the basket with my wedding gown and sewing things, and meet her halfway to their home. She looked distinctly uncomfortable when I caught up to her, and paused in the shade of the jungle for a moment.
“The eggs will come soon,” she assured me when I asked how she felt. “And then I shall feel much better. Afterward, Shardas and I must only take turns keeping them warm.” Sighing, she led the way to their cave, which was right inside the central mountain.
It was different from Shardas’s old cave, which had been formed from pale gray stone. The mountains of the Far Isles were long-dead volcanoes, and the rock was mostly rough and black and porous. To soften the floors, deep sand had been laid in the string of chambers, and I stopped to admire the pattern that claws and tails had made in the soft white sand. It would look good on a gown, I thought, and made a note to sketch it when I got the time.
Once again Shardas had used mirrors to reflect the light from small ventilation shafts, so the caves were well lit and full of fresh air. On a shelf carved out of the living rock was a row of strange, lumpy shapes.
Shardas’s glassworks.
They were beautiful, and strange, I thought. If you had told me this one was a goblet, this other a plate, I would have laughed—they were too oddly shaped to be of actual use. But from a purely aesthetic stance . . .
“They truly are gorgeous,” I breathed. With a reverent finger I traced the curve of one piece, stained faintly blue.
“I think so,” Velika said, her voice soft. “I tease my mate because he will insist that they have a practical use, or that they will one day, at least. But I do enjoy looking upon them.”
“Yes,” I agreed. Studying the lines of a larger creation, this one translucent green and shaped vaguely like a tree, I saw how it might be meditative to gaze on them.
I lifted another green piece, this one no larger than a plum. It appeared to have started out as a flower, but then folded and collapsed in on itself. I held it up to the light, admiring the clarity of the glass and the complexity of its shape.
Laughing, Velika settled into the deep, sandy hollow at the side of the main cave.
“What is it?” I turned to look at her, still holding the lump of glass.
“You have picked your own gift out of the lot,” she told me. “Shardas was making that for you. It was to be a flower. He almost threw it back in the furnace, but I told him to keep it anyway.”
“Really?” The glass had a pleasing feel in my hand. “May I keep it then?”
“I think it is safe to say that you may.”
Her eyelids drooped and I settled down by her side to sew while she napped, spreading my white gown out on a piece of coarse linen. I had all the pieces sewn together now: sleeves, bodice, collar, skirts, and was carefully stretching individual sections on my embroidery hoop and embroidering designs of dragons and trees and waves all over the gown. The designs were white on white, according to the tradition of the Triune Gods, but later I would sew on little crystals here and there—to highlight the dragons’ eyes, the fruit on the trees—that would give it subtle flashes and sparkles of color.
We had used this technique on Marta’s gown the year before. The idea had come from some silk we found in Citatie, which had tiny pieces of crystal or even metal sewn to it, creating a mirrored effect. We had used several lengths of the mirrored silk to create wing covers for Shardas, whose wings were still damaged from his dive into the Boiling Sea. The wing covers had enabled him to defeat his brother, the evil Krashath.
As magnificent as the wing covers had been, however, I was glad that we were only using mirrored silk and little crystals to make fine gowns now. I could live a long, full life, perfectly content, without ever having to see two dragons dueling again.
I kept the green glass flower where I could see it, and occasionally touch it, while I worked. It was very warm in the cave, and the silk of my gown was very soft. Before I knew it, I was asleep in a curve of Velika’s tail.
A noise woke me, and I was disoriented when I opened my eyes. It was so dark in the cave that I knew it must be night. Only a few sparkles of bluish white light reflected off the mirrors. I peered around but didn’t see Shardas. Velika was still breathing deeply, profoundly asleep at my back. I wondered how long we had been lying there, and why no one had come to wake us yet.
Sticking my lumpy glass flower in the pocket of my tunic and gathering my wedding gown into its basket so that it wouldn’t get stepped on, I stumbled out of the cave to look for Luka and Shardas. There was a wide clearing at the entrance, and in the light of the moons I could see Darrym standing there. I wondered if he had been asked to stand guard since Shardas wasn’t here. It seemed odd, though, that Velika would need a guard, and I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing. Was he just standing around staring, the way Shardas had been talking about?
Then the humans, with their bows and arrows, came creeping out of the jungle, and I shut my mouth.
C
all the queen, Creel,” Darrym said, his voice cold.
“No.” I couldn’t stop staring at the people surrounding me.
I had never seen people that looked like this, not even in the Grand Market, in the heart of cosmopolitan Pelletie.
They were all men, tall and nearly naked, covered in bizarre white tattoos and strings of dull beads. Their long hair was pulled back from their faces in weird topknots decorated with quills, and more quills had been sewn to the striped cloth that wrapped around their hips and thighs like bandages. The effect was both fascinating and intimidating.
And so were the arrows they were aiming at me.
“Call her,” Darrym said again, his voice high and tense.
“Why? What are you doing? Who are these people?” My own voice sounded just as strange.
“Call her, or they will shoot,” Darrym said.
One of the men did shoot, and the arrow buried itself in the sand directly between my feet. It was fletched with black feathers and the force of the shot had sunk it halfway into the sand.
“Velika!” I yelped. I couldn’t help it, and stared at Darrym, still defiant. Velika was twice his size, and wooden arrows were no match for dragonfire.
“What is it?” It took her some time to come to the mouth of the cave, and her swollen belly caused her to half-skid out of the entrance before she had a chance to see the archers.
And then the net dropped over us.
It was made of stiff leather, and dripping with a greasy liquid that made my eyes water. Velika roared, and flamed, and clawed, but the net only tangled in her claws and her fire did nothing. The basket on my back pinned me to the ground, and I couldn’t get my arms out of the straps.
The strange men yanked on ropes near their feet, and another net rose out of the sand where it had been concealed, trapping us like fish. Darrym rose into the air, taking some of the ropes in his claws, and two other small brown and green dragons came out of the trees to take the rest.
Velika and I were lifted up, awkwardly, frighteningly, in the nets and the dragons flew away with us. They barely cleared the trees, and I closed my eyes in terror, all the while screaming for someone to help us, but no friendly dragon appeared in the moonlight.
Silent except for an occasional moan, Velika was bunched beside and somewhat beneath me. Her scales were so hot it was making me uncomfortable. Once we were over the ocean and there was no one to hear my shouts but our kidnappers, I stopped yelling and tried to get her attention.
“Are you all right? Velika? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you, but the arrow . . .” My protest sounded weak and I fell silent. I could have stood up to Darrym, to them. I always said that I would do anything for my friends, but when the first arrow landed at my feet I betrayed them. I clenched my fingers around the strands of the net and mentally cursed my cowardice.
“It is all right, Creel,” Velika said, her voice labored. “You could not have known . . . the other dragons . . . the fire-bane . . .”
“Firebane?”
“An herb . . . brews . . . a potion that can be used against dragons. Stops us from flaming, makes us sleep . . .”
In horror I realized that she meant the strange liquid on the net. It was extremely pungent; my nose and eyes streamed from the fumes. I began to yell again, my voice rough and strained, but this time I was yelling to our captors.
One in particular.
“Darrym! How could you do this to your queen?”
“It is because she is my queen,” was the reply. “We need her.”
Once again he had the brown canvas bag strung around his neck. What was inside it? Bottles of this firebane? A jar of alchemical water, used to bespeak his cohorts? I kicked out at the net in frustration, but only succeeded in entangling one of my feet in an awkward way.
“Who?” I practically screamed the question at him. “Who are these people? Where did these dragons come from?”
I had not seen every dragon in the world, but I knew that Darrym was considered unusual for his dull coloring and his pale, cowlike horns. Where had he met two other dragons who looked just like him? How long had they been planning this?
These questions went unanswered, however, as did any others I shouted to him. He would only tell me coolly that “they” needed Velika, and the firebane was a necessary evil. He patted the bag at his neck again. All his nervous bobbing, his obsequiousness was gone. In its place was a smug arrogance that made me wish I had some firebane to pour on
him
.
As dawn broke, I saw that we were encircled by eight dragons. Those who were not carrying the net clutched enormous wicker baskets. I could see the faces of the odd, stern warriors who had helped capture us peering over the edges as we flew south and east, far from Shardas and any hope of rescue.
The consoling thought that at least I was with Velika, to comfort and aid her, was soon dashed. A small rocky islet came into view, and Darrym gave the order to the group to fly low over it.
One of the dragons carrying a basket of warriors glided in close, and a man with a fierce grin and a golden spike piercing his nose leaned out and cut two of the strands of netting, nearly slicing my left arm in the process. He grabbed that arm, and my left knee, and gave a shout. His dragon flew even farther down, and I was pulled, screaming, through a hole in the net barely big enough to fit me. The basket containing my wedding gown stuck and nearly jerked my arms out of their sockets, but then it popped free as well. The man holding me leaned out over a bit of sand jutting away from the islet and let go.
I landed facedown, fortunately missing any rocks. By the time I had regained my wind and coughed out the sand I had swallowed, Darrym and Velika and the others were nearly out of sight. Velika hadn’t been awakened by my struggles, and I worried anew for her and her eggs.
Tracking the flight as long as I could, I used a stick to mark their path in the sand so that we would be able to follow them. I was confident that Shardas and Luka would find me, and then we would get Velika back.
I had to believe it.
A quick tour of the islet revealed nothing growing and nothing edible, but I did find a few sticks and one smallish driftwood log that had washed ashore. I piled them up, pulled the flint and tinder from my belt pouch, and lit them. My signal fire was so pitiful that I soon added the scraps of fabric left over from my gown that were too small to be of use, some loose twigs from the basket, and then my own undertunic.