Boots thudded in Handel’s den, and Adelina ran onto the ledge. “Lars finally said I can help rescue Erob.” Her cheeks were pink and voice breathy.
Ezaara melded with Singlar, Lars’ dragon. “Is Lars all right with Adelina coming along?” she asked.
“He relented a few minutes ago. It seems she wore him down,” came the old dragon’s sardonic reply.
Ezaara sent him a mental chuckle. Good. It made sense Adelina was coming. Besides being Roberto’s sister, Adelina knew Erob the best. Although how she’d convinced Lars, Ezaara had no idea. “Adelina can ride with me,” she said.
Zaarusha extended a foreleg to help Adelina climb up into the saddle.
“We have to get Erob to safety as quickly as possible,” Pa said. “Ezaara, please give Adelina some freshweed too, to mask her scent.” He nodded at Adelina as she stuffed the bitter leaves into her mouth. “We’ve all had ours. Remember, Erob is our goal. If tharuks are around, we’ll communicate via our dragons to decide our strategy. If Erob’s gut is too badly injured, Ezaara may need to stitch him up temporarily before we move him. Before our dragons mind-meld with Maazini to get Erob’s exact location, does anyone have questions?”
“Yes,” said Adelina. “Why aren’t the council rescuing my brother?”
Hans frowned. “As far as I understand, the council wants us to retrieve Erob first, then we’ll use the information he has to free Roberto.”
Thank the Egg, Adelina had asked. Ezaara was half crazy with worry.
Ezaara, Zaarusha and Handel mind-melded with Maazini.
Ezaara was hit with Maazini’s sense of bone-weariness. Then she saw Erob, his head slumped on stony ground near a glade of trees. The side of his belly was ruptured. In her mind’s eye, they ascended and Erob grew smaller. It wasn’t a glade of trees he was lying near; he was in a clearing in a vast forest—Great Spanglewood Forest—with mountains rising a short distance away.
“Those are the Terramites,” Zaarusha said. “He’s very near Death Valley. There are bound to be tharuks nearby.”
“Then we’ll deal with them,” Handel snarled.
Ezaara held up the ring Ma had lent her—Anakisha’s ancient ring of power. “Are you ready, Pa?” At his nod, she slipped the ring on her finger, rubbed it, calling, “Kisha.”
“Ana,” called Pa, rubbing his ring.
With a pop, Dragons’ Hold disappeared.
Suddenly, they were in a tunnel of billowing clouds, bathed in golden light, their dragons suspended in midair. A willowy woman in a white gown approached, the clouds visible through her transparent figure. Ezaara recognized her from Zaarusha’s memories—Zaarusha’s last rider, Anakisha, who’d died in a desperate battle years ago.
Zaarusha crooned a bittersweet melody of love and loss.
Anakisha smiled, mind-melding with all of them. “The years have treated you well, Zaarusha. Thank you for bringing your new rider and Hans to see me.”
“It’s good to see you again, Anakisha.” Hans said. “My daughter, Ezaara, is yet to fully qualify, however, she’s doing well.”
“It’s pleasing to see Zaarusha so well loved.” Anakisha nodded at Ezaara. “Remember, only use these rings of power in dire need.” A dark shadow rippled along the tunnel wall.
“We’re in need. Zaarusha’s son, Erob, is dying,” Ezaara melded.
Zaarusha rumbled, showing Anakisha their destination.
Her ex-rider smiled. “It’s wonderful to see you again, my friend.”
With a crack, they were above Great Spanglewood Forest. The sinking sun splashed its blood-red rays over the jagged Terramites. Roars ricocheted off the trees. Burning torches blazed. Tharuks yanked on chains, dragging Erob’s limp body across a stony clearing.
Ezaara readied her bow, mind-melding with Erob. Nothing. A faint blue thread of sathir was all she could sense. “Zaarusha, I can’t talk to him.”
“Neither can I, but I can talk to them,” she snarled, diving at the tharuks. Fire gusted from her jaws, sweeping a group of beasts off their feet and leaving them smoking. An arrow whipped past Ezaara’s cheek as Adelina let one fly. A tharuk fell, the shaft embedded in its eye.
More tharuks ran from the trees, aiming arrows. Ezaara loosed an arrow, hitting a tharuk in the chest. It stumbled, crashing to the stone.
Handel roared past, chasing a group of beasts.
Arrows rose in the air, whistling toward Zaarusha’s wing, dripping green gunge. “Look out, limplock.” Ezaara shrieked.
The queen swerved. “Thanks.”
In Erob’s wake was a trail of churned-up earth and stones where the beasts had dragged him. A wide swathe glistened in the setting sun. “Zaarusha, lower, I need to see what that is.”
Zaarusha swooped low, heading over the trail, blasting flame at the monsters in her way. Her fire illuminated an ugly sight. A wide slick of Erob’s blood marred the ground, leading to an enormous rent in his belly. His pale, moist entrails glinted. Ezaara’s hand flew to her mouth as her gorge rose.
“Pull harder,” yelled a tharuk troop leader, his bellow carrying above the mayhem.
The beasts heaved on the chains. Erob’s belly skin split further, the gaping wound growing with each tug.
“They’re killing him,” Adelina screamed in Ezaara’s ear. “We have to stop them.”
Zaarusha swooped lower, slashing tharuks with her talons as she sped toward her son.
Adelina’s arms loosened from around Ezaara’s waist. Chill air rushed across Ezaara’s back. Adelina dropped off Zaarusha. With a crunch of stone, rolling to stand, Adelina was running to Erob, sword out.
“No, Adelina,” Ezaara cried.
Handel swooped. Stones crunched as Tomaaz dropped to the ground and pelted after her. Handel flew above them, blasting tharuks with fire, clearing the way to Erob.
Zaarusha whirled to flame a new troop of beasts that burst from the trees. Ezaara nocked and fired, felling tharuks as fast as she could, but more kept coming.
The queen grabbed the trunk of a young tree and wrenched. Roots ripped from the earth. Rocks and clods fell from the tree’s tangled roots onto the tharuks, knocking some out. She swung the tree, sending tharuks crashing to the rocks. With a roar, Zaarusha dropped the tree onto the beasts, trapping most of them beneath it.
Opening her jaws, she blasted fire. The branches caught. Flames licked along the trunk, incinerating the beasts in a column of fire that rose to meet the bloody-red sky. Through the stinking smoke, Ezaara aimed at two tharuks that had escaped, felling them with her arrows.
Zaarusha wheeled back to Erob.
Near Erob’s head, Tomaaz was hacking at a tharuk. Its claws swung near his face and he jumped back, his spine against Erob’s snout, then lunged.
With a half-snarl-half-shriek, the tharuk fell, an arrow in its neck. More arrows flew from Pa’s bow, hitting tharuks in the arms, thighs and head. Handel spun to the beasts yanking the chains.
“Move dragon,” yelled a large tharuk, waving a torch.
Tharuks yanked the rope around Erob’s neck. The momentum swung Erob’s head across the stones, knocking Tomaaz to the ground.
Adelina jumped in, slashing her sword across a tharuk’s neck. Its head flew to the ground in a spray of black blood.
“Let’s clean up this mess,” Zaarusha snarled. She swiped at the tharuk leader, impaling his neck on her talon, then ripped his head from his body, tossing the remains into the trees. She roared, swathes of fire cutting down the tharuks tugging on Erob’s neck chain. Handel attacked the beasts yanking the other chains.
“Not too close. We’ll burn Erob.”
“Retreat,” a tharuk yelled. The remaining tharuks dropped the chains, fleeing for the forest. Handel chased them with tongues of fire.
As the sun dipped behind the Terramites, Zaarusha landed near her son. “Hurry, Ezaara.”
Erob’s deep blue sathir was weak and flickering. Even though his sides barely moved as he breathed, the sharp imprint of his ribs pressed against his
skin above the gaping rent in his belly.
No, not Erob. They’d journeyed for days together, searching for Roberto in the Robandi desert. His dry humor had stopped Ezaara from going crazy. Losing him would break Roberto’s heart.
Handel thumped to the ground, stones flying. “Tomaaz, Adelina,” barked Pa. “Stay vigilant. Swords at the ready.” He rushed over. “What can I do to help?”
“Bring me torches, as many as you can.”
Adelina ignored Pa, flinging her arms around Erob’s scaly neck. “Come on, boy,” she said, voice shaky. “Roberto needs you. I need you. You can’t die on us. I refuse to let you.” Even in the torchlight, it was easy to see Erob was dying. The ragged wound was as long as a man, and oozing guts and yellow pus.
Zaarusha butted her head against his snout, but Erob didn’t respond. Her sorrow washed through Ezaara.
“Pa and Tomaaz, ready the nets. Adelina, tell Erob to hold on.”
Ezaara sloshed water over Erob’s intestines. If they dried out, they’d crack and there’d be no saving him. Luckily blood seepage had kept them moist. She dampened a clean cloth and held it against his gut, pushing it back inside the wound. “Adelina, hold his skin together, please.”
Adelina pressed the cloth over the end of the wound, holding Erob’s gut in. Ezaara threaded her needle. If she didn’t stitch him temporarily before they moved him, his gut would split wide open, spilling his intestines. Erob didn’t even flinch as she jabbed the needle through his tough hide. Sweat beading her forehead, she tugged the edges of the wound together in long uneven stitches. Adelina moved along the wound as she worked, holding the edges together.
Handel stalked the clearing. Tomaaz and Pa prowled around, bows nocked, keeping an eye out for tharuks.
“Monte Vista, where I grew up, is an hour’s flight away. We’re near where I first met Handel.” Pa’s brow furrowed as he paced past Erob.
A few weeks ago, Pa had told Ezaara the story of how his sister, Evelyn, had been killed at the hands of tharuks near the foot of the Terramites. Was Pa remembering his sister too? She jabbed the needle back through Erob’s skin.
At last, Ezaara was done. “His guts are on the inside now. Let’s get him back to Dragons’ Hold.”
“Erob. Please, son, wake up,” Zaarusha begged. Her desperate attempts to meld with the dying dragon yielded nothing.
Ezaara strode to Erob’s head. “Adelina, hold the corner of his lip up.” She jammed a vial of piaua between his fangs and tipped. Erob swallowed. Thank the Egg.
“We have to get the nets under Erob,” Ezaara said. “Zaarusha, Handel, if you roll him, we can slide them under halfway, then we’ll have to roll him back to pull the nets through. Hopefully the stitches will hold.”
A gust of air few from Erob’s nostrils. “Ezaara?”
“Erob, You’re awake.”
“Barely,” he answered weakly.
Ezaara’s eyes stung. “We’re using Roberto’s fishing nets to carry you home.”
“A dragon-fish?” Erob attempted a weak chuckle, but it turned into a splutter.
“More like a fish out of water,” she answered, motioning the others into place. “We have to move you to get the nets under you. It’ll hurt, but please hold on.”
“Now,” Ezaara commanded.
Zaarusha and Handel squatted and pushed against Erob’s side, rolling his injured belly off the ground. Still melded, Ezaara felt the wave of pain rippling through his wound. Scrambling between their limbs, Adelina, Tomaaz and Pa unrolled the net, pushing it under Erob’s belly as far as they could.
They gently lowered Erob back down onto the nets.
“The hardest part will be to hold him while we pull the nets through,” Ezaara said. Tomaaz, Pa and Adelina joined her on the other side, faces grim in the flickering torchlight.
They positioned themselves, ready to grab the nets as Handel and Zaarusha rolled Erob. The dragons shoved.
“I see the nets.” Tomaaz darted under Erob’s belly to grab one end. Pa, Adelina and Ezaara crawled under to help. Crouched under the dragon’s bulk, groping for the nets in the dark, Ezaara realized what a far cry this life was from the innocent sheltered life she’d led in Lush Valley.
“A far better life,” Zaarusha mind-melded. “What you’re doing now matters. You’ve already saved the lives of many—including mine and Roberto’s.”
Ezaara could feel the strain of lifting Erob in Zaarusha’s thoughts. “Can you hold him?”
“Only for a few moments longer.”
“The dragons need us to be quick,” Ezaara said, tugging a length of net and flattening it.
“My part’s done.” Adelina scrambled out of the way.
“Mine too,” Pa called, crawling out between Handel’s limbs to safer ground.
“This end’s stuck,” Tomaaz called. “Ezaara, can you give me a hand?”
Ezaara slipped along to his end of the net and yanked it. “Handel, Zaarusha, a little higher.”
The dragons strained and pushed Erob further.
Erob let out a moan that made Ezaara’s skin crawl. “Shards, we’re hurting him.”
“Fast!” Zaarusha’s mental voice trembled. “I can’t hold him.”
Ezaara yanked. Suddenly, the net was free. She sprawled on her backside under Erob’s descending belly.
“Move. I’m slipping,” Zaarusha barked, talons scrabbling in the stones.
Tomaaz’s strong hands pulled Ezaara backward as Erob’s bulk landed right where she’d been.
Gasping for breath, she stared at Tomaaz. “That was close.”
He nodded and swallowed. “Dragon squash—never grew that on our farm, did we?”
Behind them, twigs cracked and a low snarl came from the trees. As quick as a starving dragonet, Adelina snatched up her bow and fired. A yell sounded. Pa nocked his bow, too, aiming for dark shadows among the trees. Handel gusted flame at the tharuks.
Zaarusha mind-melded, “Ezaara, we have to go.” She snatched up the net on one side of Erob. “Handel, take the other side. Ezaara, tell everyone we’re leaving.”
“To the dragons. Let’s go,” Ezaara yelled.
Pa and Adelina ran to Handel, but a beast leaped out of the trees, straight for Tomaaz. He slashed with his sword.
Shards! More tharuks were nearly upon him. Ezaara fired an arrow into a beast’s neck, then slung her bow over her back and ran at the tharuks. She swung her sword, connecting with flesh, fur and bone. More and more beasts were pouring out of the forest. “Tomaaz, too many tharuks. We have to go.” Ezaara ducked a tharuk’s claws and parried. “Hurry, now.”
They raced to Zaarusha, two tharuks on their heels. As they scrambled onto Zaarusha’s back, Handel blasted the beasts.
Roars and snarls broke out as tharuks ran at them.
Handel and Zaarusha grasped the net on their respective sides of Erob’s body and flapped, lifting him off the ground. “Quick, the rings. He’s no lightweight,” Zaarusha melded.
Ezaara and Pa rubbed the rings, calling Anakisha’s name. With a pop, the snarling beasts and smoldering tharuks disappeared.
Anakisha floated toward them, surrounded by golden light.
“Liesar, we have Erob,” Ezaara mind-melded.
“Quick, Anakisha, to Dragons’ Hold,” Hans called. “Erob is dying.”
§
Marlies paced on the ledge outside the infirmary. Her needles and squirrel gut thread were ready on a small table. She’d also prepared clean herb infusion—which Liesar kept warming every time it cooled—vials of piaua, and limplock remedy in case Erob had been poisoned. All they needed now was Erob. What was taking Ezaara, Tomaaz and Hans so long? With instantaneous travel, they should’ve returned ages ago. The torch stuttered in a chill wind that rippled across the basin. She stopped to gaze out over Dragons’ Hold.
Something strange was going on. A dragon master was stuck in Death Valley, yet no rescue party had been sent. The council hadn’t refused to rescue Roberto, but they hadn’t acted y
et. Why would they leave one of their own, a master with highly valuable skills, in Death Valley? She tugged her jerkin closer around her and went into their quarters next to the infirmary to fetch a cloak. Cold affected her more since she’d returned from Death Valley two moons ago. And fatigue.
Lately, she was always tired.
When she’d taken the blue piaua berries and sunk into a deep coma to prevent Zens from torturing her, she’d never realized that it would leave her with bone-deep tiredness that she could never shake. On the outside, no one guessed. Since she’d been reinstated as Master Healer, she fulfilled her duties, but exhaustion dogged her. Throwing her cloak over her shoulders, Marlies paced through the infirmary.
“Marlies, Erob’s coming,” Liesar melded from the ledge.
Marlies strode out to the ledge. What she saw made her blood freeze.
Erob was suspended in the nets between Handel and Zaarusha, but below him hung a tharuk. Clinging to the bottom of the nets with one hand, it was sawing at the ropes with its dagger. Any moment now, Erob would plunge to his death.
“Liesar, there’s a tharuk on board.” Marlies ran to the infirmary, snatched her bow and arrows. “Tell Handel and Zaarusha to hold right there. I’m getting weapons.”
“Done.”
She raced back to the ledge. Shards. In the flickering torchlight, with the dragons fighting to keep Erob aloft, the tharuk was swinging like a rag doll. She couldn’t get a clean shot.
The beast drew its dagger back and plunged it into Erob’s belly wound. Erob bellowed in pain.
Marlies loosed her arrow.
The tharuk thudded to the ledge, its knife skittering across the stone. Marlies kicked the monster’s body off the ledge and it thunked down the mountainside to the basin.
The fraying nets ripped.
“Support Erob,” she melded to Liesar.
Liesar dived under the hole in the net, using her body to help ease Erob to the stone.
Ezaara sprang down off Zaarusha. “He has a belly wound, blood loss, is dehydrated and may have an infection.”
Erob was listless, his scales fading. “Ezaara, check the rest of his body for wounds or arrow marks in case he’s been limplocked. I need water.”
Riders of Fire Box Set Page 67
