It was as big as a platter and if she could rig a handle in the back, she might be able to use it as a shield, to protect herself from the fires of her ledge-mates. Dragon scale had to be fire-proof, didn’t it? The scale didn’t seem as big as the ones on the mother dragon so she imagined it probably belonged to an older and larger brother or sister dragon from another clutch. She devoutly hoped he or she wasn’t off at dragon school and would not want to come home to the cave for an after-school snack—her—any time soon.
The young dragons were rather sweet in a terrifying sort of way, but she had to leave. Going down the way she came up was out of the question, but perhaps she could go further up on the crater’s edge at another point and then go down—more gradually?
The possibility bore further exploration.
The entrance to the passage from the crater was open. Fresh air and a spot of sunlight or even a snowy night would be refreshing at any rate.
Verity was quite sure that if anyone were going to rescue her, it would be her. She couldn’t expect much help from an elderly aunt and a train full of strangers and nobody else would know until the train reached civilization again, would they? Civilization could be defined in this sense as being somewhere that the locals did not tie other people to stakes and wait for dragons to carry them off.
The tube-like passage was steep, but climbable. It was an old lava tube, left in the mountain from the days when the volcano was active. She’d read about them in geology texts.
The floor of the passage was quite slick, but fortunately her moose hide soled boots were made for walking on the dry Argonian snow, and were not at all slippery. It took much longer to climb up it than it had to be carried down it, however. But at last, and it seemed that it had been weeks instead of only hours, she stood at the entrance, reveling in the open air.
The sky had darkened to steely gray with dirty clouds lurking on incredibly vast horizons. Almost at her feet, the lake spanned much of the crater’s bottom. It seemed even bigger now than it did when the dragon soared over it.
She needed to see what lay under the lip of the crater where it dipped to its lowest point. The walk was much farther than it had looked, but there appeared to be a path along the side of the bowl, skirting the lake. That made sense. Unless the dragon had hauled each and every cow and sheep up the mountain, someone had to drive them up, which meant they needed to climb back down again—probably very quickly.
But looking down the side of the mountain, she saw only the impossibly steep drop into the valley below she had seen when the dragon flew up. It was far too sheer for her to climb, especially without equipment. No wonder the passage from the dragon nursery to the outside had been so easy. It wasn’t as if she would be able to go anywhere from the only outside area she could reach.
The path dwindled to nothing near the crater’s lip. Who had put it there? Surely not the dragon. Unless she’d made the path to give her babies easier access to the herd, which might mean she wasn’t returning to help them.
Loathe to return underground and resume being a living target for ballistic young dragons, Verity walked along the shore of the lake until the sky grew darker and it began to snow. She might not find her way back to the cave. She might die of exposure. If only there were some way to signal any possible airships flying overhead, a vain hope. The dragon could have swatted one out of the sky with her tail. Airship dragons, any tame working dragon, would be no match for her. If the area were devoid of air traffic, a signal fire would be futile. It would attract only the attention of the savage villagers who’d staked Verity out to begin with. They’d probably take a signal fire for the dragon’s flame as the beast barbecued her.
Nearing the cave mouth once more, she spied a flash of something that caught the last rays of the setting sun shining off the lake.
A rustling noise issued from inside the cavern’s passage. The dragonets squealed up the long passageway and crowded around her. They seemed to have missed her.
Then they saw the cows and sheep. She was glad it was getting dark so she need not witness the details, but in the end, she had to find a stone to finish off the sheep the dragons had managed to wound the worst. She hated it, but she couldn’t bear to watch the poor animal suffer any longer. The dragonets were messy killers. She hoped even more fervently that they were now her friends. At least they had not seriously attempted to kill her. Yet.
So she dragged the sheep up to the cavern entrance and down the corridor, hindered by the eager assistance of the dragonets.
The last thing she wanted was for the mother dragon to return, but honestly, what could the creature be thinking, flying off like that and leaving her babies to fend for themselves when they were obviously so bad at it?
Chapter 21
Stockyard
As soon as the train’s whistle awoke her from the nice nap she had been enjoying, Ephemera realized she seemed to have mislaid a niece.
She had dreamed of her girlhood when she used to sit beside the Blabbermouth River, listening to its songs, some of which even made sense. In her dream, the River sang to her in a deep bass voice and in its depths, she saw the face of a very attractive young man. Waking, she sighed with the realization that these days, a fellow like that was much too young for her.
She awoke to more pressing problems. Where had Verity gone? She looked in the saloon car and in the dining car, and peeked into the compartments of the other passengers with sleeper cars, but there was no sign of her niece.
She sought the conductor. “Did you see the young woman traveling with me re-board the train?”
To do him justice, he looked thoughtful. “I don’t believe I did, actually. Might she have made the acquaintance of passengers in another car?”
She shook her head and told him where she had checked. “Unless you can think of somewhere else on this train that she might be, something must have happened to her.”
“There’s no other place I can think of,” he said slowly. “Point taken, Madame.” Without further discussion, he pulled the emergency brake.
Although the passengers in the main saloon and the others who had sleeping compartments were very quick to tell him what they thought of yet another delay on the journey, they had nothing to tell about Verity or her whereabouts. Ephemera knew herself to be somewhat absent-minded, what with her head full of ancient tunes, runes, song lyrics, spells, and chants she had collected throughout her life, but Verity had quite a good memory and was at heart rather a practical girl. She would not just leave without a word.”
“How old is she?” asked a plumply maternal looking woman in an adjoining compartment.
“Sixteen, I believe,” Ephemera replied. “Have you seen other young people she might have befriended?” She knew this was unlikely. Although Verity was a lovely girl, she had confessed she had trouble making friends and more keeping them. Her talent for truth-telling prevented her from being tactful, or murmuring the courteous little lies that greased the skids of Society. (Not that Society would admit to having skids.) Ephemera, a musician in her younger days who came from a long line of traveling minstrels, bards, and historians, was rather ashamed of herself for having stuck the poor girl with the unvarnished truth and nothing but. She hadn’t realized when she bestowed her gift what a burden it might be.
“Where are we exactly?” she asked the conductor.
“Under normal circumstances, about half an hour from the village of Draciobedcitac,” he told her.
“That’s a mouthful,” she said, repeating the word flawlessly nonetheless. It came in handy for recording stories authentically. “What does it mean?”
“The Stockyard.”
“Oh dear. And how far are we from Drague?”
“At least another eight hours, I fear.
“So we are in the middle of nowhere, in other words,” she said. Not that this bothered her particularly. She lived in the middle of nowhere and was in fact, most comfortable in the middle of nowhere. One might not find very many peo
ple there, but one did find people one might talk to, not institutions that already had their institutional minds stuck in a path much less flexible than a railroad track.
“Nevertheless, from what I’ve read of the local lore, the inhabitants of this country have a firm respect for justice, especially if justice is required by someone with a lot of spare change. We must report my grand-niece’s disappearance to the appropriate authority at once and mount a search party.”
“Well, yes, but finding the appropriate authority might be difficult, Madame. The local law of the land in these parts are brigands and barbarians for the most part.”
“They are a bit backward from what I’ve heard, Madame,” the steward added. “Follow a lot of superstitious nonsense.”
“Are they?” she asked, repressing a delighted grin and the urge to cry, Oh, Goody! “How far would you say we have traveled from the avalanche site?”
“Five miles, perhaps. Maybe ten at the most.”
“Very well. You can let me off here. I will need my skis and snowshoes from the baggage compartment if you please.”
“You can’t just let a little old lady go off alone like that,” said a military looking gentleman, one of the ones who had been outside during the avalanche clean-up. Quite a crowd had gathered in the corridor while she conversed with the conductor. “That young lady will surely die of exposure if she is lost and wandering in the woods.”
“I very much doubt that she is lost, Colonel,” Ephemera said, looking up at him. She did so admire a man in uniform, even though she thought most wars were ultimately pointless. “I believe she may have been abducted.”
“By whom?” the Colonel asked. “Everyone except her returned to the train, did they not, conductor? Or did others wander off willy-nilly as well?” The conductor’s mouth opened and closed, but the Colonel waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind. We cannot wait to reach Drague to organize a search party. I am calling for volunteers now.”
Two other men volunteered and were dispatched to knock on more compartment doors to recruit other volunteers.
Ephemera nodded to the conductor, who stood there looking as though he wanted to protest, but was unsure about what.
“Which car did you say contained our luggage?” she asked him.
In relatively short order, he took her to the baggage car and she collected the things she thought might be necessary for rescuing wayward nieces from a variety of misadventures, as well as a few things she liked having with her, just in case.
The conductor tried to persuade her to wait for the search party, but she said, “I fear there is not a moment to spare. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. My home at Wormroost is mountainous and is snow-bound much of the year. I’m used to it.”
Exiting through the back of the rear-most car, she descended to the tracks and strapped on her skis, then set off down the path between the tracks, where the train had already blazed a trail for her. Her snowshoes and pack were affixed to her back.
The moon was full and threw her shadow ahead of her, and a much taller darker version of her beckoned her onward. Somehow even when a shadow was one’s own, it didn’t seem trustworthy. There were several stories on the subject. She was warm, almost overheated, by the time she reached the avalanche site.
The snow was no longer blowing so hard, and in the protection of the mountainside, had drifted very little despite the wind. She easily spotted where something large had slid down the hillside and made another deeper track climbing back up, dragging something. That would be Verity, she presumed. Reluctantly, she pulled her feet out of the bindings that held them to her skis and crossed the skis, jamming the backs into the snow beside the hill to mark the place for the rescue party that might come from the train. Then she kilted up her skirts and started climbing.
Fire Fights
During the dragonets’ blessedly frequent naps, Verity was able to extend her explorations of the upper cavern and the crater. She found more shells, scales, and human bones and skulls, and no fewer than three other stakes like the one she’d been carried in on.
Dragonets seemed to be very hard on their nannies and the skeletal evidence of that turned her colder, despite her heavy clothing. She was so used to tame dragons that the stories of wild, carnivorous, marauding dragons had never captured her full attention. Now they did.
But her curse kicked in and reminded her that those skulls would have been here in other times for other hatchlings, perhaps with less amiable dispositions. These two didn’t seem much worse than many of the girls she’d been to school with. They could even be helpful, having ignited a makeshift torch for her. It came in very handy for identifying the various sharp-edged and pointy things underfoot and for trying to form some idea of the cavern’s geography.
It also helped her make use of what was at hand that she could turn to good purpose.
She made an armored apron of the shed scales, similar in shape to the one she wore while at her bench at home. Poking holes in them with her knife, she tied them together with threads from the hem of her coat, and in the same manner fashioned a helmet into which she tucked her hair, the most likely bit of her to catch fire even if nothing else did. She cut a strip of hide from the half-eaten cow and turned it into a handle for the largest of the scales to serve as a shield.
Her new gear made dragon tag a little less hazardous and painful, but she quickly became exhausted from all of the dodging, ducking, twitching, twisting, running, and falling. Often, she was reduced to cowering behind her shield.
She just had to keep alive until help came, which she was sure it would once Ephemera realized she was missing. At least she hoped Ephemera would realize she was missing. If she didn’t, Uncle Nic would, sooner or later. Meanwhile, she would keep trying to escape.
The traditional way, of course, would be to slay the dragon, but that was easier said than done, especially since there were three of them, and she was without tools of major dragon piercing capability.
The Dragon Vitia
The Dragon Vitia opened one eye and smiled a warm, toothy smile.
She snuggled deeply into her hoard, sending precious stones, coins, beads, and pieces of jewelry clattering, some splashing into the river upon which her wealth was a precious island.
Her high hopes for the new offering were validated. She could tell by the way the girl had clung to the stake that she was a strong girl, from her scream that she was a brave girl (the timid ones only whimpered). From the way she played with the children, she was also nimble and kind enough that her first reaction was not to kill the children. That also showed intelligence since a previous offering who had made that mistake was represented in the nursery by a skull rolling around on the floor.
In a cave silent except for its own echoes and the snores of her children, the Dragon Vitia heard the girl’s thoughts as she tied scales together to protect herself. Resourceful too. Good. Very good. Useful qualities in a hatchling-minder.
This girl promised to work out better than any of the other offerings, perhaps as well as that first girl, a real fireball.
The current offering reminded her of that one. Vitia might not have to eat her, or not until dessert, at least.
Chapter 22
Flamework
“Ow! Stop it, you cheeky little bugger, that hurt!” Verity cried. “I don’t have scales, you know.”
Screech screeched triumphantly and dived at her again. She huddled down, covering as much of her as possible behind the borrowed scales of her apron and shield, but Skronk, the other dragonet, decided two against one scale-deficient human wasn’t as much fun as chasing her sister, so she ploughed into her, the momentum crashing both of them into a wall. The impact stunned Screech and the two slid down the wall, followed by a rattle and the sound of breaking glass as part of the wall broke loose.
Verity caught her breath. So ends another game of Ricochet-Off-the-Wall-While-Trying-to-Burn-Verity, she thought. Then she noticed that Screech was not getting up and she k
nelt to examine the little dragon very carefully for injury.
Screech was fine and jumped up as if to say ha-ha, fooled you! and Skronk started chasing some round things that rolled across the floor of the ledge until some of the other debris stopped its progress. Verity nudged the plaything toward her, thinking to set it rolling for Skronk again, and then she saw what it was. A shard of crystal—a rod really. Part of the wall, it had fallen when the dragonets crashed into it.
It sparkled, reticulated with light-reflecting particles shining through soft swirling colors, like stars through a rainbow.
It strongly resembled the material used in her mother’s bead. How had her mother obtained such a bauble? Had she made it?
Yes.
Verity was not sure where the certainty came from, but it was true.
She hadn’t tried making beads before, but she had seen it done and had rather wanted to try it. The glass-worker had given her class at Miss Marbella’s Academy of Cultural Education for Recalcitrant Girls an excellent demonstration. The basic process hadn’t looked too difficult, if one had a source of workable glass, patience, a few tools and a torch—or two. During the demonstration, the worker told them that bead-making had been developed as an accidental by-product from metal-working.
“All right,” she said to the baby dragons, “Let’s try something. Maybe for once you can make yourselves useful.”
The two dragonets looked up at her. They grew fast! It could not have been more than a few days since the dragon abducted her, and they were already larger. Definitely larger. The bead around her neck grew so warm she shed her coat.
“This will be a new game,” she coaxed.
Perhaps they were just growing used to her voice, but they fluttered their still stubby wings so that they bounced up and down.
“I want you to blow on the end of this rod,” she told them, touching the long crystal with a piece of scale, a wise move since before she withdrew it, her charges were spurting small hiccoughs of flame at the rod. “No, make it smooth and steady,” she told them, and heard herself using her father’s teaching voice. She demonstrated by blowing on the crystal as evenly as if it were a flute.
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