by Eric Vall
I did as the elf said, and after about a minute of staring, the rocks suddenly rippled as if they were breathing. I waited a moment longer, and when I was sure I saw something blink, a chill ran down my spine.
“What is that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Deya admitted, but I could tell by the glint in her eye this wasn’t going to stop her. “I like him, though. He’s stealthy, whatever he is.”
“That’s a maybe,” I told her firmly. “We don’t know how big he is.”
The two of us slid back behind the rocky shield to find the others waiting nervously, and while Deya explained to them which route she wanted to take in the pass, I sparked my Terra Magic and began scanning for any hint of a channeling gem within the mountains.
I sifted through swaths of obsidian that ran nearly twenty feet deep, a few rogue patches of gold, and tons of granite, but nothing more distinct came back to me. So, I moved my magic further into the pass and continued carefully probing the base and the walls for several minutes while I waited for a spark similar to Bobbie or Big Guy’s gems. Both of their channeling gems gave off a different frequency, and I’d noticed the same thing when Shoshanne scanned my body with her healer’s staff earlier. The gem mounted on the staff was a deeper purple than Big Guy’s indigo gem, and the two frequencies were like night and day.
Bobbie’s channeling gem was distinctly lighter in both appearance and presence, but I had already learned this didn’t dilute the strength of its power. When I mounted it in the engine, I’d been fully connected to the gem’s internal makeup, and the strength was surprisingly overwhelming, whereas Big Guy’s was more manageable.
So, while I didn’t know what type of channeling gem I might find here, I wasn’t too surprised I wasn’t picking up any identical frequencies to the gems I’d already come in contact with.
The dwarves and Aurora had both warned me ages ago that it took a special finesse to be able to locate the magical gems, but I didn’t doubt I’d accomplish it. I’d advanced with my Terra magic beyond what I’d ever imagined so far, and this was just the next challenge.
While I scanned the rocks, I kept half an ear trained on the conversation of the women as Deya and Aurora gauged the safest path for her, and Cayla crouched near me to get a look for herself.
“Shoshanne,” the princess muttered, “do you think you can stick close to me and help with the drake? He looks very strong, but if you cinch his lungs a bit, it could tire him out faster.”
“I can do that,” the healer assured her. “We could use that carcass as cover, it might mask our smell a bit.”
“Not that carcass,” I cut-in, “there’s something blending in with the rocks right next to it that’s alive. Try the tree with the knotted roots, there’s enough fresh blood on it to do the same for you, and the roots are stacked enough to conceal you from that angle.”
Cayla had just nodded her agreement when Aurora suddenly grabbed us both and yanked us backward, and as I grabbed Shoshanne to tumble with us under the cover of the rock, a massive and deep green dragon coursed overhead on its way into the pass. It was returning with three bodies clamped in its jaws that were too bloody to recognize, and the strength of its wings kicked up a fierce wind around us.
“What is that?” Aurora asked in awe.
“I don’t know, but I want its scale,” Deya said with a hazy smile as she craned her neck to follow him.
“Let’s just focus on the ones we looked at first,” I sighed. “If this goes badly, we’ll be lucky to get out of here with one scale, let alone all of these.”
“Any luck with the gems?” Cayla asked.
“I thought I sensed something in the wall beneath the yellow guy,” I told her, “but I lost it when the dragon came by. We may as well get started, though. The sun’s rising, and I don’t want them to get too much rest.”
The women nodded their agreement, and we all took a collective deep breath as we moved to the edge of the rock.
“Deya, why don’t you creep up on the one with the poisonous breath first,” I suggested. “I don’t want him riled up if you’re near him, so it’s best to handle that one while no one knows we’re here yet. I’ll watch your flank, and Shoshanne will be ready to redirect his breath if something goes wrong.”
Deya immediately flickered out of sight, but I felt her brush her hand along my arm before she headed into the pass, and my pulse thudded nervously as I eyed the tenuous path she would be taking.
With the pass yawning open, there was a gentle enough grade for her to scale the ridge with relative ease, but there were several loose rocks that could easily slide free and give away her position.
Shoshanne moved to my side with her palms at the ready, and Cayla shifted to get past me.
“I’m going to the tree,” the princess said in a low voice. “I can crawl under that ledge to get there without being seen.”
“Okay,” I agreed, “but don’t forget the patch of blue over there isn’t just rock.”
With a curt nod, Cayla slipped around the corner and ducked under a shadowy ledge, and despite the hammering in my own chest, I wasn’t surprised to hear the princess’ pulse was as steady as ever.
She stalked like a cat through the dim crevice without making a sound, and she brought herself to the gnarled roots of the bloody tree unnoticed. The pebbly sound of rocks sliding down the ridge abruptly drew my attention to where Deya must be, and although she was within five feet of the yellow beast’s nest already, the sound didn’t seem to bother it.
Shoshanne and I exchanged a glance, and Aurora nudged me gently.
“Focus on the gems, Mason,” she whispered as she squeezed my hand. “We’ll be okay.”
I nodded, but this was nearly impossible to manage. Even my runes weren’t paying attention to me anymore because every ounce of my attention was wrapped around the beautiful women who’d just strolled into Mors Pass.
But if I didn’t get those gems, the risk we were all taking would be worth much less, so I did my best to keep my task in mind. I scanned the rocky ledges with my Terra magic, but I kept my eyes glued on the two yellow beasts above us. The male snapped its jaws as a serpentine tongue slithered out to swipe some blood from its snout, and each of its teeth appeared to be as long as my hand.
Then my magic caught on the strange presence I’d sensed in the stone, and as I considered how to get at it, I realized I could help Deya and mine for gems at the same time.
I saw the branch of a shrub near the yellow dragon’s nest rustle as she slipped past to get closer to the male, and just as his hindquarters twitched, the horned snout turned around. That’s when I snapped a chunk of stone loose from the ridge below its nest, and the crumbling of rubble hitting the ground swiftly pulled its attention away from Deya.
The beast’s haunches tensed as its predatory sights narrowed on the bloody pass floor, and I quickly broke another chunk loose. Several other dragons in the lower-lying nests turned their attention this way too, but since there was no one for them to see there, I kept up my mining.
One of the prowling drakes stalked over with his green eyes flashing menacingly, and he kept the two yellow beasts tense at the ready while he came within reach of their nest.
I couldn’t tell if Deya had succeeded yet or not, but as I dug deeper into the cliff face, the thing I’d sensed in there began to call to me more clearly, and I was sure I’d found what I was looking for. It vibrated within the rock with a subtle hum that made my spine tingle, and it was only another fifteen feet beyond my reach.
The drake was snarling in frustration as some invisible force continued digging into the stone and flinging rubble back at him, and when he suddenly snapped his teeth angrily, the yellow beast in the nest lurched.
In a flash, the mother dragon had its talons buried in the drake’s shoulders as she snapped for a bite, and the hefty drake flipped wildly to free himself from her hold. His tail smashed into the ridges on either side of him to send rocks flying all around, and
when they began to tumble down from where Deya had been, my gut dropped.
I stopped my digging and tried to find any sign of her in the bloody pass while the two beasts tore into each other, but then I caught a glimpse of pink up on the ridge, and I found Deya still sneaking high above. She sent me a curt nod before she turned and headed into the underbrush, and I could tell she was heading for the black dragon next.
“Get to Cayla,” I told Shoshanne as I carefully shifted the floor of the pass to create a barricade between the two dragons and the bloody tree. “They’ll be done soon, I’d imagine, but if they notice Cayla, you’ll need to use your wind to keep them back.”
Shoshanne slipped under the crevice to follow the same path Cayla had taken, and Aurora and I watched nervously from behind the shield of rock.
“One scale down,” I told her. “Where is Deya heading after the black one?”
“The purple,” she muttered, but both of us fell silent when a furious snarl ripped through the pass, and the drake began wheezing desperately. There was a strange orange haze in the air, and I realized the yellow beast had finally used its primary defense.
I nodded to Shoshanne, and while the dragon flew back up to its nest with an angry snap of its jaws, I felt a breeze kick up in the pass to dilute the poisonous breath it left behind.
The drake was already dead, though, and its eyes were oozing a sickening, mustard-like substance.
Aurora cringed. “We need to work more quickly. That black dragon looks too focused for my liking.”
She wasn’t wrong.
The beast Deya was making her way toward had his orange eyes still locked on the dead drake, but then he flicked his gaze to the yellow dragon, the rubble, and the rustling shrubs on the cliff face all within two seconds.
“He’s paying attention to Deya,” I mumbled. “Get onto that ridge and be ready to light him.”
“But we can’t kill him,” she immediately protested.
“Go,” I growled.
Aurora didn’t argue this time and sneaked as quickly as possible up the ridge to hide herself in the spindly shrubs.
The black beast must have caught a glimpse of her hair, though, because his eyes narrowed on the ridge just behind her heels. I knew he couldn’t see her now, with both a boulder and a knot of roots blocking his line of sight, but the moment she moved, he would.
“Aurora, don’t move,” I muttered and hoped the half-elf would hear me. “Deya, he’s too alert, go for the female. Aurora will help you but wait for my word.”
Then I broke a chunk of the ridge open further down the pass, and the beast immediately whipped his head away from where my women were all hiding.
“Go,” I ordered, and I saw Aurora slip into a more concealed spot and continue onward as she crawled through the shadows under the brush. A flicker of pink showed me Deya was trying to move lower on the ridge instead of attempting to approach the massive black dragon, and I took a steadying breath while I shifted the rocks a bit more to keep him distracted.
Once I was sure Aurora and Deya were in position together near the proper nest, I checked that the orange eyes weren’t glinting in my direction before I crept out from behind the shield of rock. I could work faster if I could locate the gem more directly, and with all of my women now wandering around the pass, I needed a clearer line of sight in case I needed to shoot.
So, I quickly passed Cayla and Shoshanne up to slip beneath the ridge I was trying to mine and managed to hide behind the rubble I’d left on the ground before the yellow dragons could see me. Then I sparked my Terra Magic to seep into the stones, and I quickly located the telltale hum of the gem. This time, I burrowed a small two-inch hole into the rock so I would unearth as little excess as possible, and I gradually drilled deeper toward the call of the channeling gem.
I ground the rocks I pulled out into dust before depositing them onto the bloody ground to be sure no one would hear me working, and I took a couple breaks to shift the rocks in the depths of the pass to keep the black beast preoccupied.
I didn’t have a visual of any of my women as I crouched amongst the rubble, but I could hear their pulses and sense where they were through the stonework, and I had enough clearance to take down seven dragons in my line of sight if necessary.
A throaty snarl suddenly echoed close by, though, and I froze in place as the drake Deya wanted edged closer. He was only fifteen feet away from me, but he was preoccupied with the carcass of the poisoned drake, and I held my breath as my rune became agitated.
The leaden weight in my arms spurred on my instincts and sent my hand to the revolver on my hip, but I willed myself to stay focused. If I fired on the drake now, all of us would be trapped inside the pass when the dragons reacted, and I couldn’t take that kind of a risk.
To my surprise, it was this realization that abruptly reined in the rune’s strength, and I knew I’d found exactly what I needed to stay focused.
There was no way I’d go ballistic on these dragons if it meant my women would be harmed, so I turned my full attention to where they all remained hidden, and the rune silenced itself despite the drake who was now a mere six feet to my left.
I could sense Deya and Aurora already heading in a new direction, and I figured they must have succeeded in snagging a scale from the mate of the black beast on the ridge. Cayla and Shoshanne hadn’t moved from their hiding place in the gnarled roots of the tree, but I could feel the Aer Mage’s powers sparked at the ready, and I realized they were about to take on the drake.
But Deya and Aurora were nowhere near ready for that one.
In fact, I heard their footfalls clear as day as they dropped onto the bloody floor of the pass to get to the opposite ridge, and the drake heard them, too.
Everything seemed to slow to a stop as I saw the drake whip around, and my vision funneled dangerously as his green eyes snapped to the two women. I pulled the revolver from its holster before it could take a step, but then I heard the crack of a whip, and the drake’s tail jolted violently.
The drake flipped around with its tail narrowly missing me, and my adrenaline spiked as I quickly scanned for the women in the pass.
Aurora and Deya were already scaling the opposite ridge, and Cayla and Shoshanne hid together just beyond where the drake was angrily hunting for whatever had snapped at its tail.
The hot breath of the yellow beasts above me drifted down to where I was hiding, so I knew they were both watching everything take place, which meant we were all on thin ice now.
Cayla’s whip cracked once more, though, and she managed to angle it at the hindquarters of the drake to confuse him. So, when the drake snarled furiously in response, he flipped around again, and his jaws lingered on the other side of the rubble I was hiding in.
Better me than them, though.
I remained as still as a statue while his fangs slid right past me, and when I broke the floor of the pass apart near the opposite ridge, he lunged and snapped violently at nothing there. I heard the yellow beasts shifting restlessly, but I didn’t pay them any mind.
The sooner I got out of the spot I was in, the better I could help the women, so I sparked my Terra magic again and began burrowing through the rock as fast as I could without making too much noise. I kept the drake busy by slowly inching the crack in the ground further into the pass, and he angrily snapped at the bloody ground as he clamored over the carcasses.
I knew he must be drawing the attention of several nesting dragons with the commotion he was causing, and I hoped the black beast on the ridge was completely preoccupied by him, because Deya and Aurora were nearing the purple dragon who nested just across the pass from him.
To my relief, my magic suddenly surged as I finally dug deep enough, and I summoned the gem to me through the hole I’d drilled in the cliff side.
Gradually, it worked its way to the surface, and I managed to unearth the two-inch chunk of deep green emerald. The color was so dense that the inner fissures almost looked black, and my palm ti
ngled as I held it in my hand. I knew it was a channeling gem by the potency of its presence, and as I seeped into the emerald, I sensed a strength comparable to Big Guy’s own gem beginning to send its pulse back to me.
I had a greedy grin on my face when I pocketed the magical gem, and my adrenaline spiked eagerly. I’d just located and mined my first channeling gem, which was a feat the dwarves had sacrificed many men to accomplish in the past, and so far, the dragons didn’t even know all five of us were in Mors Pass.
One gem down, presumably two scales, and I was already zeroing in on a promising hum higher up on the cliffside. I kept my Terra powers focused here, and with the drake now thirty feet down the pass and busy snuffling through a pile of skins, I eyed a route I could take to bring myself to a more prime location.
With another misdirecting surge of magic, I sent a few boulders sliding down the ridge, and then I ducked low and crept across the base of the pass. I slunk over a sphinx carcass that smelled several days old to avoid the yellow beasts seeing me, and then I used a pile of sun-bleached bones as a temporary cover while I gauged my next move.
The call of the gem I might have located was coming from the rocks beneath the black beast, but my throat tightened when I saw his orange eyes weren’t on me or the boulders I’d loosened down the pass.
They were on the nest of the purple dragon, and the muscles in his great black shoulders were twitching in anticipation.
This was my primary concern before I noticed a low hissing sound somewhere near my back, and I realized all at once there was a familiar patch of blue nearby that hadn’t been there before.
Then it blinked.
Chapter 21
I hadn’t even drawn a breath yet when my rune rose up in retaliation, and I lunged from the pile of bones just before two white fangs could take a snap at my arm. When I tumbled across the bodies on the floor of the pass, every dragon in my vicinity jumped to their feet, but my eyes were glued on the serpent-like creature with mottled blue and white scales rising up for another strike.
