“Actually, I do believe that. Ever since you told me you were a cop.”
“A what?”
“Police officer. Or your world’s equivalent.”
“Hm, that is not precisely my position, but I do help my clan uphold the law. I have not made it a secret that I find this assignment—” he waved to the forest, or maybe the vermin-infested planet in general, “—unappealing. It is beneath me.”
“It must be hard being so magnificent.”
“You and your trinkets could do what I am doing.”
“Just when I think you aren’t a complete asshole, you get all arrogant and superior on me.”
I expected him to glare and maybe flare his eyes at me, but he only gave me a considering look. “Dragons are long-lived but not fecund as a species, so there are not many of us. We must serve where we can be of the most use—those of us who actually care about serving something other than megalomania. My abilities are needed back at home.”
“So you’re frustrated.”
“Yes.” He looked at me as if this should have been evident from the start, as if I knew anything about dragon politics and his clan. “Yes,” he said more quietly, more reserved.
Zav turned and resumed walking. I was tempted to ask him for more details, but I doubted he would give them to me. It sounded like he was low-man-on-the-totem-pole back home. Who would want to admit that to some scruffy mongrel? What ranking did Dob have, I wondered. Zav had been evasive when I’d asked if he was stronger than Dob, and it might be telling that he’d dragged me along. Maybe he wanted me to be a distraction if they fought. Or a sacrifice.
“Comforting thought.”
Zav had drawn ahead, but he paused and looked back.
“Just wondering what the odds are of me surviving a battle if we actually find Dob.”
“You need not risk yourself.”
“You said you were taking me to get in his way.”
Zav smiled faintly. “I was hoping there would be another windmill and you could convince him to burn down his own hideout again.”
“I see you got the details from someone.”
“One of the kobolds. It pleased me that you vexed Dobsaurin.” He turned the smile on me, and my stomach did a weird little flipflop.
Oh, no, Val. You are not attracted to the dragon. Especially the dragon who calls you a mongrel and grabs your wrist if you presume to touch him.
“But it doesn’t please you when I vex you,” I noted casually, ignoring his smile—and my stomach’s theatrics.
“I prefer it more when your biggest weapon is pointed at someone I detest.”
My biggest weapon? I raised my eyebrows and touched Fezzik.
“Your mouth.”
Ugh, I’d walked right into that one. Had I truly been pleased earlier that my humanness—my sarcastic humanness—was rubbing off on him?
“If my mission places you in danger,” Zav added, “I will protect you.”
That would have made me feel better if I wasn’t certain that Dob could kick his ass.
Zav returned to the walk. “Come. We are close to the first cave.”
I didn’t point out that I’d already investigated three caves.
Zav paused, lifting his nose in the air like Sindari. “I cannot sense him, but I smell dragon.”
21
Zav, who kept sniffing the air for dragon scent, took me not to any of the caves I’d already checked but in a new direction. I dismissed Sindari, aware of the limited time he could spend on Earth, and trailed Zav on a meandering route around dense copses of trees, through depressions, and up hills. Now and then, we would pass some rusty saw blade or other century-old detritus of the logging past.
We came out on a bluff overlooking the churning water of a river, and Zav led the way down a steep slope thick with ferns, their fronds heavy with rainwater. In the rare spots devoid of vegetation, years’ worth of fallen fir needles and cones lay decomposing in soggy clumps.
Though Zav obviously knew where he was going, we were almost on top of the cave entrance before I spotted it. Mossy boulders were mounded to either side.
Anticipation ran through my veins. This was the first cave that looked large enough for a dragon to fly into and, thanks to the waterway, the canopy overhead was open enough that one might reach it from the air.
I peered into the dark passage. It looked to go back quite a ways.
Even though I didn’t sense another dragon, I let Zav go ahead. Way ahead.
After all, Zav was struggling to sense his nemesis too. Dob clearly had a way to hide his aura. And even if he wasn’t here, he could have left behind booby traps.
That thought rang in my mind so strongly that I hurried to catch up to Zav so I could warn him.
“Watch out for traps,” I blurted when his robed back came into sight, my flashlight beam illuminating it.
“I am. I suspect he has set many for me.” Zav looked back and down at the beam. He squinted, even though I wasn’t shining it in his eyes.
I angled it toward the lumpy dirt-and-rock floor of the cave.
“That is obnoxious,” he said.
“My need to see?”
“I suppose you have no power over that, but I refer to the beam of light shooting out of your hand device.”
“It lets me see in the dark. See? Light.” I flashed it onto the wall next to us, then beyond him and into a wider section of the cave that appeared partially natural and partially hollowed out by human hand. Or dragon magic.
Zav raised his hand, and Chopper loosened in my back sheath.
“What are you doing?” I reached for the hilt, catching it before he could levitate it away.
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t try to force it out of my grip. He stepped forward and wrapped his hand around mine. The warmth of his touch—and the fact that he was touching me at all—startled me.
Before I could again ask what he was doing, he spoke a single word that meant nothing to me. “Eravekt.”
Chopper often glowed a faint blue, usually during a battle or in the presence of magic, but the blade flared to a much brighter blue than I’d ever seen. It pushed back the shadows of the cave, but the glow remained soft enough that it didn’t make me squint and look away.
“Eravekt?” I said experimentally.
The glow faded.
“Eravekt,” I said firmly.
Chopper flared back to life.
Zav didn’t exactly roll his eyes—did dragons know about that gesture?—but he did lift them heavenward and issue a long-suffering sigh. “Why do you even have this weapon if you don’t know how to use it?”
“I know how to use it just fine. The pointy end goes in the dragon.”
“That is unlikely to happen, especially given your command of its power. Perhaps later, a small rodent will skitter through, and you can skewer it.”
“Perhaps later, I can poke you in the butt with it and see if you feel it. Dob has known its bite.”
One of his elegant eyebrows arched. “Has he?”
“His front right toe was in extreme agony for at least seven seconds.”
“It’s good to know you’ve so weakened my foe.”
“I’m here to help. Are you going to let go of my hand?”
He looked at my hand under his, as if surprised he had touched me. Or surprised by something. No doubt, how beautiful and feminine my hand was, despite the scars and sword calluses.
Oddly, I didn’t mind that his fingers were still wrapped around mine—I usually would have kneed a guy in the nuts by now. I told myself it was only because he knew things about my sword that I didn’t. Naturally, I wanted to be agreeable so he would share his information.
Still, I couldn’t help but add, “Because among humans, this would definitely be considered making a pass.”
He released me immediately.
“And here I thought you’d overcome your aversion to humans and wanted to woo me.”
“No.”
“I’m
crestfallen. Meanwhile, what’s the deal with that word? And do you know how to spell it?” I flipped my phone to the notepad app with my free hand.
“I’m sure a phonetic spelling will suffice. It’s Dwarven.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Light.”
“That’s not as imaginative as I would have guessed.”
“Dwarves are a prosaic people. It takes someone with power of their own to activate one of their enchanted blades, the word notwithstanding.”
“Oh.” I lowered Chopper in disappointment. “So it only worked because you were holding my hand?” No wonder he’d kept the grip so long.
His eyebrow drifted upward again. Just the right one. Like Mr. Spock. Maybe he’d stayed in a motel and caught some old Star Trek episodes when he’d been away hunting criminals.
“No.” Zav extended his hand toward the sword.
An invitation to try it again? I was starting to feel self-conscious, and more than a little dumb for not knowing activation words for a sword I’d carried for ten years, but it wasn’t as if I had any dwarf acquaintances who could have told me.
“Eravekt,” I said.
It worked. I grinned at Chopper’s new feature. It was a big, goofy grin, but I couldn’t help it.
I expected Zav to lift his gaze heavenward again, but the faintest hint of a smile curved his lips.
“Are there other things it can do?”
If we were going to fight a dragon that was stronger than he was, any extra advantage I could find would be great.
“Many things, likely. I’m not familiar with that blade specifically, but most dwarven weapons are enchanted with that command. You may be aware that dwarves usually dwell in tunnels. They can see in much dimmer illumination than humans, but, as with felines, their eyes do need a small amount of light to function. Even their simplest tools are enchanted with the power to create illumination. If there is time later, we can try other commands, but you should thoroughly research your sword.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll hit up the Seattle Public Library when we get back. The magical swords section.”
“Good.” Zav headed into the cave.
Thinking again of traps, I lingered in the entrance to the larger chamber and peered around using Chopper’s pale blue light. I supposed it was wrong of me to wish that Zav would fall into some kind of nefariously clever pit trap with magical bindings and dragon-eating lions, and that I could heroically rescue him and prove I wasn’t an imbecile.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—the ground didn’t open up, nor did any obvious trap spring. Zav stopped in the back to stare at mounds of dried fir and cedar needles that might have been a very large bed. Not a very comfortable one. The mounds were low and didn’t do much more than even out the lumpy floor.
“He slept here,” Zav said. “At least one night.”
“No sign of kidnap victims, eh?” I peered at the walls, remembering the niche under the floor of the windmill where Dob’s young prisoners had been stashed.
“No.” He lifted his nose in the air again.
I wondered if he still had superior olfactory senses when he was in human form. Most shifters took on the characteristics and gained the attributes of whatever creature they turned into, and then largely lost them in their human form. But I didn’t think dragons were the same as werewolves and werecats and the like. Dragons were their native forms, not the other way around.
“Can you smell if any other humans were here?” I asked.
“Only you.”
“Do you know how long ago Dob was here?”
Zav turned and gazed at me.
“Sorry. I’m annoying you. I’ll stop asking questions. Carry on.” Since no traps had enveloped him, I wandered in and poked around.
There wasn’t much to poke at. Other than the mounds of needles that could have been brought in by animals, there was no hint that this was the home of an intelligent being. Even if it was temporary, I had expected more from a dragon. Something to suggest the cave was lived in by someone more sophisticated than a bear or badger.
“Like what?” I mumbled to myself. “A wall unit and a throw rug?”
Zav, who had been considering the needle bed with his chin in his hand, looked at me again.
I started to apologize once more for interrupting his contemplation, but then I remembered: “It was your idea for me to come with you for this.”
“I didn’t realize you would be so verbose.”
“You didn’t? The first time we met, I burbled nonstop in the hope of chancing across an argument that would keep you from killing me.”
“You did burble,” he agreed, then pointed toward the exit. “Wait outside. I’m going to set a trap in case he comes back.”
Normally, I would point out that he should have added a please, but if he was going to make something that would spew fire from the walls at anyone inside the cave, I didn’t want to hang around for an etiquette discussion.
Outside, with the river rushing by below, I stood in the rain and worried that this whole trip would be a waste of time. Was there any point in checking more caves? Would Dob be stashing people in one, wrapping them up with some magical binding, and then sleeping in another? So they wouldn’t get their human cooties on him while he dozed?
As I gazed at the water, I realized there was no guarantee he’d kept those joggers alive. I’d been assuming it was a possibility since he’d kidnapped the kids, but then he’d slaughtered those horses and riders on the trail. Was all of this to keep Zav distracted from the criminal-capturing mission he’d been on? Or distracted from things happening back in his world? What had he learned when he’d gone back home for a visit, and who had called him back?
I grew aware of more auras than Zav’s and dropped my hand to Fezzik’s grip. There were several magical beings in the trees higher up the slope behind me. Knowing that made my shoulder blades itch, so I turned to face them as I glided behind a sapling growing up between two boulders. It wasn’t much cover.
A couple of the auras were familiar. My goblin graffiti artists were back. And they’d brought friends.
To pick a fight? It was hard to imagine. As full-blooded magical creatures, they had to sense Zav in the cave. Unlike Dob, he wasn’t doing anything to hide his aura.
A few of the goblins shuffled down the slope, coming closer. Two females and two males came into view, stopped, and pointed at me and my tree. Then they pointed at one another. One of the females was pointed at more often, and she threw up her hands and walked closer. The elected speaker?
I activated my translation charm and hoped she understood English. If she didn’t, I would be able to understand her, but unless they had similar devices, they wouldn’t understand me.
“Mythic Murderer,” the female goblin said in guttural English, stopping about ten paces from my tree.
I hadn’t drawn Fezzik, but she glanced toward my thigh, so she knew about the weapon.
“You can call me Val.”
Goblins higher up the slope and hidden by the foliage chattered to each other too softly for my charm to pick out their words.
“I am called Work Leader Golgitha. I was chosen by my slightly cowardly kin to tell you about the dragon.”
My ears perked up. “The silver dragon?”
“Yes.” Golgitha glanced toward the cave opening—Zav must have sensed the goblins out here, but he hadn’t come out yet. “Do you seek him?”
“Yes.” I saw no reason to make a secret of that.
“He sleeps sometimes in the woods out here, but he has also been seen frequently in the water factory.”
“Water factory? Oh, the Tolt Water Treatment Facility?”
I’d biked out to it once years ago. It was at the end of the Tolt Pipeline Trail, which we weren’t that far from now. I was positive the old logging roads winding through the area could take us to it. It had been locked up the time I’d reached it, and I assumed the public wasn’t invited inside for tours. If memory served, the
facility oversaw a big reservoir farther back in the foothills that supplied a lot of the water for the city.
An uneasy feeling wound through my gut as her words sank in. The water-treatment facility would be the kind of place a terrorist wanting to wreak havoc on Seattle might target. But would a dragon from another world think to mess with the city’s water supply? Maybe.
“It is a large building with many tanks and pipes of water rushing through,” Golgitha said. “I have been inside a couple of times at night on acquisitions quests.”
I gathered that meant stealing tools and materials that might be useful for goblin projects.
“But not recently. Several days ago, one of our acquisitions teams did not come back. We believe the dragon killed or captured them.” Golgitha shook her head, her full lips, yellow eyes, and bulbous nose forming a grimmer expression than I was used to seeing from goblins. “Most likely, he killed them. Their kind believe goblins have no worth.”
“I think dragons feel that way about everybody who’s not a dragon.”
“Not everybody.” Golgitha squinted at me. “You are part elf?”
“Yes, but half human too. Zav tells me humans are vermin.”
She mouthed “Zav” as if she couldn’t believe I’d called him by such an ignoble moniker, but she didn’t otherwise comment on it. “Yes, then perhaps you understand. The silver dragon hides his aura, but we have seen him flying in and out of that place. Once, he was carrying a human in his talons.”
“How long ago?”
“Three days, perhaps.”
That was when the joggers had disappeared.
“Do you have any idea what he’s doing inside?” I asked. “Just storing captives or something else? And how has nobody from the city noticed him? There’s a staff that works there, right? I’m sure it’s not completely automated.”
Actually, I wasn’t sure of that. I remembered seeing a utilities truck parked there the time I’d ridden close, but it was possible everything was automated these days and someone only came out if there was a problem. It wasn’t as if we were that far from the city.
Battle Bond: An Urban Fantasy Dragon Series (Death Before Dragons Book 2) Page 19
