Dragon Stones (5 page)

"Of course I will," she said, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world.  "You would run us into the mountain, flying around with your eyes closed."

Adaran made a face at her, then pulled on his gloves and slipped into his boots.  He pulled up his black hood—his cloak matched Redshen's almost exactly, having been made by the same tailor—and cinched it tight.  The two of them looked like versions of the same shadow, one short, one tall.  Redshen looked him over.  "Ready?" she said.  Adaran nodded.  She gave him an
everything will be fine
wink, then turned and ducked out of the tent; he followed close behind.  But as he emerged into the crisp night air, hands grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms behind his back.  He couldn't see who had him.  He felt himself lifted off the ground, spun around in a half-circle.  There was Redshen, struggling with one of Dosen's men.  He had her in a headlock, his other arm around her slim waist.

What was going on?  Had someone overheard them plotting to raid Dosen's tent?  Perhaps; but too many men were about, their shapes grey in the wan moonlight, for this to be a response to Redshen's little scheme.  They had fanned out among the tents, weapons drawn; and now he could hear a commotion from Jenune's tent, the clash of steel and wood.

Suddenly the wizard's tent exploded in a burst of smoke and noise and white light.  Two of Dosen's thugs tumbled away from the blast, rolling along the stone face of the mountain before coming to a stop, twitching and smoldering.  Taking advantage of the distraction, Adaran wrenched his shoulders up, dislocating both of them and slipping away from the henchman who held him.  The thug cursed and lunged, trying to regain his grip, but Adaran spun away, cartwheeling to the side and delivering a solid kick to the side of his head.  The man grunted and went down.  Adaran landed in front of Redshen, dagger drawn and ready, but before he could do more than aim the weapon, a shower of hot, sticky liquid sprayed him, spattering his face and neck.

"Redshen!" Adaran cried.  Dosen's minion had cut her throat, and now he tossed her aside like a piece of garbage, lunging at Adaran, stabbing with his short, fat sword.  He was too slow by far; Adaran easily sidestepped the thrust, grabbing the man's arm and using his own momentum to pull him off balance.  He thrust his dagger into the thug's abdomen, slicing through the thin fabric of his shirt, opening up the flesh beneath.

As the wounded guard moaned and clutched at his belly, Adaran raced to Redshen's side.  He knew at once that he could do nothing to help her; the gash in her neck was long and ragged, blood spurting out with the weakening pulses of her heart.  She looked up at him, eyes unfocused and blinking rapidly; she tried to speak, but the words whistled through her severed windpipe.  Her lips told him to run.

He looked to the right.  Three more retainers were coming at him from the direction of Jenune's tent.  Their weapons were drawn and bloodied, their faces bruised and pummeled.  Even caught asleep and unarmed, Jenune must have put up a ferocious struggle.  But there was no more use in fighting; he was outnumbered at least five to one, with more killers on the way.  He took a last look at Redshen, but she lay still now, her slashed throat steaming in the cool air.

Cursing, Adaran turned and ran for the edge of the ridge, racing along the rugged stone.  
He could hear Dosen's men break into pursuit behind him but didn't spare a look back, concentrating on his keeping his feet amid the rocks and rubble.  If he slipped or fell, they would be on him in a moment.

Something clattered against the stone nearby, bounced away in front of him.  A crossbow bolt.  He cast a dire glance at the moon, which had chosen this moment to emerge from the dark clouds that had obscured it earlier, and began to zigzag as more arrows came skittering across the rocky spine of the mountain.

He had almost reached the edge now, where the ridge dropped away to the trees below.  He needed to find a way down.  Off to his right he spotted a cleft in the stone, like a chute leading into the forest.  He darted that way and vaulted into it, but it was steeper than he'd expected, its damp floor strewn with loose rocks and years of accumulated dirt, foliage, pine cones.  He lost his footing, fell, and started to slide, shooting over the edge of the ridge into open space, falling, the ground rushing up to meet him.  He let his legs take the brunt of the landing, bending at the knees to absorb the shock, going into a roll that took him under the trees and out of sight of his pursuers.  He dug his feet into the loam, checking his tumble, and came to rest just shy of the trunk of a massive pine.

Adaran stood, brushed himself off, listening to the debris pattering to the ground and the distant voices of the men trying to figure out where he had gone.  He doubted they would be able to climb the sheer cliff to reach him, but come the morning they could search for him from the air.  He had to think of these pursuers as hawks, not as men.  He started down the slope, moving away from the ridge, darting quickly from one tree trunk to another, not stopping until he came to an abyss.  This precipice appeared much higher than the last; the ground dropped away into a vast, howling darkness, as if he had run to the edge of the world.

Well, he had known all along that escaping from Dosen's camp would not be a matter of walking down a slope, into a valley, and out of the mountains.  He was going to have to climb, with little knowledge of what he'd be climbing into; he had not watched the terrain during their flight from the dragon's lair, and so he had no idea where exactly they had landed.  He remembered that Orioke had said they'd flown west.  If the wizard was correct, that would have put them deeper into the mountains, perhaps even past the Salt Flats.  In the morning he would be able to see into the gulf at his feet, and have a better idea of what he faced.

For now, he moved back under the shelter of the trees, curled up beneath the concealing spread of a thick pine, and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Pyodor Ponn gathered Plenn and the remaining five children in the living room of their small apartment at the back of the inn.  He had put out some discreet inquiries around the village, but no one had seen Prehn, his youngest, since the previous morning.  He let it be known that anyone who happened to find her would be rewarded; if this individual also happened to return her, the reward would be doubled.  He held out little hope, though; astride their eagles, Gelt's men could have taken Prehn far beyond the reach of any rescue.

He sat on the floor in the center of the room, the four younger children on his lap or in his arms.  Only Pord, the oldest, sat apart, his arms folded, sulking.  Ponn knew that the boy wanted to be out with his friends, chasing a ball or swimming in the warm waters of the lagoon; instead, he and his siblings had been stuck indoors for the better part of two days.  As long as Gelt remained in the vicinity, the children would not leave the inn.  Ponn had failed to protect Prehn, but he would protect her brothers and sisters.

"Tomorrow morning, your father has to go away for a few days," Plenn said.  "He has to take some men out to the islands."

Pord perked up.  "The islands?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Can I come too?"

"Not this time," Ponn said.

"But you promised I could come next time you went out in the boat.  I'm old enough now, I can help sail!"

"This isn't a regular voyage," Ponn said.  "We're going to the volcanoes."

"The volcanoes!  You mean where the dragons are?"

Ponn realized that he had only piqued the boy's interest further; he should not have mentioned their destination.  "There probably won't be any dragons," he said.  "They don't come very often anymore."

"I want to see them!"

"Hush," Plenn said.  "You can go with your father next time, but this time you must stay home."

"But—"

"No, Pord," Ponn said.  "Next time."

Pord settled back, looking even more cross than before.

"The people who are going in the boat with your father are not good men," Plenn said.  "They're the ones who rode the big birds.  Remember the birds?"

The children made noises of assent, and Pres, the next to youngest girl, said:  "The birds are pretty."

"Yes, they are pretty," Plenn said.  "But they're dangerous.  They eat little children.  You must stay away from the birds and the men who ride them."

Pronn, Pres's twin brother, said:  "They asked me if I wanted to come see the birds, but I said no."

Plenn stared at the child.  "When was this?"

"Yesterday."

Ponn and his wife exchanged a glance.  Perhaps that was how they had lured Prehn away, Ponn thought.  She loved animals, and would perhaps have accepted such an invitation.  He had imagined one of Gelt's thugs simply picking the little girl up and carrying her off; the thought that she might have gone willingly, a trusting smile on her face, made him feel even more guilty.

"It's good you didn't go," Plenn said.  "If you had, they might have taken you, the same way they took Prehn.  Isn't that right, Ponn?"

"Yes," he said.  "Yes, they would have taken you away.  They could have taken any one of you."

"Not me."  Pord made a fist with his right hand, slammed it into his left palm.  "If they tried to take me, I would punch them.  I punch hard."

"Me too!" Pronn said.  "I'll punch them the next time I see them and make them give Prehn back!"

"You will do nothing of the sort," Ponn said.  "You'll stay away from them.  You will all stay away from them.  In fact, none of you will leave the yard until I return from my journey and your sister is back home."

This injunction raised predictable howls of protest from the smaller children, but Pord merely frowned and remained silent.  "You heard your father," Plenn said.  "Now, off to sleep.  Come on."  She shepherded the children back to the room they shared, leaving Ponn alone for a few minutes.

Feeling aimless and ineffectual, he stood and wandered into his bedroom, stretching out on the pallet, staring up at the underside of the thatched roof; then he rolled over onto his stomach, buried his face in the mat, inhaled deeply.  They had stuffed the mattress with fresh fern leaves only three days ago, and it was still spongy and fragrant.  Prehn had attempted to help, toddling back and forth holding fronds taller than herself, beaming every time one of them had been used.

Plenn came in and pinned down the beaded curtain over the doorway, then slipped out of her sarong and settled onto the mattress next to him.  "Ponn," she whispered, "they
will
give Prehn back after you help them, won't they?
"

He had wondered that himself.  "I don't know.  I hope so."

"Who
are
they?  Where are they from?"

"I have not been able to find out."

"Gelt has a northern accent.  Madroval, I think."

"Yes, but he's a mercenary.  Anyone could have hired him.  They wear no country's colors, carry no country's emblem."

"What about the birds?"

"No one I've spoken to has ever seen such creatures.  Some of the villagers think they must be gods."

Plenn snorted.  "They're hardly gods.  Devils, perhaps."

"Devils indeed," Ponn said.

CHAPTER THREE

Adaran woke with a start as someone touched him on the shoulder.  He rolled away and jumped to his feet, reaching for his daggers; but he swiftly realized that he was alone, and what he had taken for the tap of fingertips was nothing but a small pine cone that had fallen out of the tree under which he'd slept.

Shivering, Adaran tightened his cloak and slumped against the broad tree trunk.  He stayed there for a few minutes, gathering his wits, and then slid around it and went to the edge of the cliff.  The first traces of dawn had become visible, veils of dim blue light creeping over the mountains to his right.  He crouched near the precipice, watching as the scene below slowly became visible.

His position was even worse than he had feared; he appeared to be facing the Salt Flats from the southwest.  The flat, arid wasteland stretched to the horizon, rimmed by mountains to the east and west.  Even if he managed to find a way down, there would be no villages, no towns, no farms, no trade.  He had only been in the region once, many years ago, with a small party coming out of the swampy fens of southern Yttribia.  They had passed around the spur of Lake Achenar, then skirted the eastern edge of the wasteland before reaching the sprawling city-state of Achengate.  Not much worthwhile came out of the Salt Flats, but everything that did went through Achengate.

The job that had brought him to the Achengate—breaking into the vast salt warehouse and stealing a copy of the seal used for stamping salt crates—had been called off at the last minute when the merchant bankrolling the operation had backed out.  The trip had not been an utter waste, though; it had earned him the acquaintance of a clever young burglar named Redshen.

Traveling along the edge of the Salt Flats had been unpleasant, but it would be paradise compared to trudging through the heart of the wasteland.  He would find himself wandering among clouds of drifting, stinging powder, fording streams of toxic brine, slogging through noisome thigh-deep slurries of dust and water.  He was not equipped to travel through such an environment; but the alternative was to try to cross the mountains and then descend into the wild jungles of northwestern Enshenneah.  He'd never been there, although he had heard tales of snakes as big around as a man, ground that looked solid but would suck you in and drown you, plants whose intoxicating fragrance made you lay down and sleep while their roots burrowed into your body.