The faint scent of orchids tickled Zenia’s nose, and she found it appealing after the omnipresent earthy smell of the jungle. A trickle of running water reached her ears, and she let herself hope for a chance to wash up before settling in for a night of sleeping on the ground.
Finally, the trees and bamboo gave way to a clearing dominated by only a handful of towering trees. Their far-reaching branches blocked out the sky, ensuring no one would see this spot from above, should someone be perched atop one of those volcanos or other mountains.
“Huh.” Jev pointed at a tall stone with a mushroom-like top off to one side. It was almost exactly like the communication stone on his family’s property, and a couple of ancient benches rested beneath it.
The source of the trickling water lay about twenty yards past the stones, a curving pool with a small stream filling it from somewhere on the far side. A jumble of boulders lay back there, rough and porous, made from the same volcanic material that, in Zenia’s vision, had comprised the mountain where the dragon was imprisoned. She supposed most of the land around here had been created due to volcanic eruption, at least the surface layers.
Rhi dropped her pack and her bo. “I’ve got no problem sleeping here tonight.”
“It does appear peaceful.” Hydal sniffed the fragrant air. “If lacking in beds.”
“You were a soldier for years,” Jev told him. “You ought to be used to sleeping on the ground.”
“I am, but now I’m traveling with a lady, and she may prefer feather mattresses and soft linen sheets.”
“Are you talking about Rhi?” Jev asked. “She rooms above a stable, you know.”
“I put my bo down too soon, I see.” Rhi squinted at him.
Jev smiled and lifted his hands.
Borti and Horti set their gear down and walked over to look at the great elven stone.
“Should we leave someone on watch?” Zenia waved toward the tiny path leading out of the sanctuary. The group appeared more relaxed already—those floral scents helped some of the tension to seep out of her muscles too—but they shouldn’t forget that they were deep within orc territory.
I can set some magical alarms to alert us if anyone attempts to enter this area, the unicorn told them, but as I said, it is unlikely that the orcs will come back here. As you can see, only animals have passed this way. She lowered her equine head and pointed her horn to the lush grass and low undergrowth carpeting the clearing. It was undisturbed by boot prints. The elves and the orcs have been enemies for countless centuries, she continued. And orcs fear elves.
“We should have brought Lornysh,” Jev said. “We could have sent him into their valley, waving his fiery sword, and then walked up to free the dragon while the orcs were all fleeing in fear.”
Cutter grunted. “I doubt it would have been that simple.”
“I hope that’s not an indicator of the kind of clever plans you’re going to come up with, Zyndar,” Borti said. “Sacrificing people as a distraction.”
“No, I’m not planning to sacrifice anyone.” Jev set his gear down by the path, but he kept his weapons belt on. “I’ll stand the first watch.”
Zenia was relieved that he agreed someone from their group should stay awake and alert through the night. Even though Eysinor hadn’t led them astray yet, she was still a stranger.
“I’ll listen in and try to contribute to the plans,” Jev said, “but I think Zenia is more likely to come up with something clever than I am.”
Zenia doubted that was true, but she did feel that the burden of finding a clever solution to their problem was on her shoulders. This was her mission. And she didn’t want to sacrifice anybody either. Maybe because they were getting close, the words of her anonymous message came to mind. Death awaits in Izstara.
Thus far, they had avoided that, even when battling troll shamans, manticores, and hydras. Dare she hope that those dangers were the ones her unidentified advisor had alluded to? Even though her group had evaded death, any one of those incidents could have led to that fate.
“Can we make a fire?” Rhi asked. “Or will that let the orcs sniff us out?”
“I don’t think we need a fire,” Zenia said, catching Jev shaking his head, “but maybe a couple of lanterns for light. I want to draw the layout of the valley so everyone can see what I’m talking about.”
Cutter whistled cheerfully and ambled to the elf stone. He rubbed his hands over the ancient carvings embedded in the surface. It was unclear if it was a general touching of the stone or if he knew how to activate the creation, but it glowed a pale green in response, the light emanating from the central trunk and also the underside of the “mushroom” cap. It was bright enough to read and draw by.
“I suppose that works.” Zenia headed that way with her gear.
“Any chance you can call up a few armies of elven wardens to help us, Cutter?” Jev waved to the stone.
Even though it was a joke—Zenia didn’t see anything like the portal underneath his castle, which the elves there had traveled through—Horti and Borti stirred uneasily and touched their weapons. A reminder that most humans, at least Kor Kingdom humans, distrusted elves and probably would for a long time. Targyon and Lornysh had their work cut out for them when it came to changing that.
“I don’t think so.” Cutter flopped down on the ground with his back to the stone.
Zenia dropped her pack in the undergrowth and used it for a seat. The trickling water called to her, but they had to plan first. Then she could wash up. After all, one wanted to smell fresh and clean when one met one’s dragon for the first time.
I will bed down in the foliage over here while you plan, Eysinor spoke into their minds.
Zenia’s cheeks warmed as she wondered if their guide had been monitoring her thoughts when she’d been envisioning scrubbing her armpits.
Please let me know if there is a manner in which I can be helpful in rescuing the dragon. Unicorns are not mighty warriors, but I might be able to use some of my magic to distract a portion of the orcs while you sneak in.
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Zenia said. “Thank you.”
Even though Eysinor had been a useful ally today and had led them to this relaxing sanctuary, Zenia was reluctant to depend on her when it came time to free her scaled ally. She believed that a unicorn might want to help a dragon simply because they were both magical creatures that had existed since ancient times but questioned how far that help would go. Would Eysinor risk her life on the dragon’s behalf? If so, why? What did she stand to gain from all this?
While she mulled over these questions, Zenia drew on the back of the map she had brought along, using her largest book as a desk. The others settled in, pulling out dried meat and fruit and nuts to eat for dinner.
“Those are mountains?” Cutter pointed to her handiwork. “All along that side of the valley?”
“Volcanos, I gathered,” Zenia said. “One looked like it had erupted recently, at least in geological terms.”
“So sometime in the last ten thousand years?” Cutter asked dryly.
“That’s recent?” Borti looked at his brother, who merely shrugged back, his mouth stuffed with dried alligator meat the twins had purchased in the outpost.
“For rocks and mountains, yes.” Cutter pointed at the drawings. “It’s that one? Behind the lake?”
“Yes. Many of these others might be volcanos too. I noticed lopsided tops on several of them even though the slopes were covered with trees.”
“We don’t have to tie a rope and climb down into a caldera to rescue your dragon, do we?” Rhi wrinkled her nose.
“No. The dragon is in a cave in this little mountain in the center of this island.” Zenia pointed. “All along here, there are roads and structures. Orc homes. A few miles farther down the valley, there were some fields. Farmlands, maybe. I didn’t get a good look.”
“What do orcs farm?” Rhi asked. “I thought they were carnivores.”
“According to my resource…�
� Zenia spread the map on the ground and opened the book to one of many pages she had dogeared. “Their diet is primarily meat, but they don’t practice any sort of livestock cultivation, so they rely on what they can hunt and trap in the wilds. Therefore, they occasionally supplement with fruits and grains. They grow a type of blue corn here and make flatbread with it. Poorer orcs often have a diet higher in corn, whereas the wealthy and the strong are more likely to subsist primarily on meat.”
“Fascinating,” Rhi said in a bored tone that said it wasn’t.
Hydal had been standing and stroking his chin thoughtfully, but he sat down next to her on a rock, shoulder to shoulder. “Do you not find furthering your education enlightening?”
“Not when Zenia is doing the educating, no,” Rhi said.
“Thanks,” Zenia said.
Rhi saluted her. “I don’t want to be enlightened on orcs either. I just want to get in, achieve our goal, and get back so certain people can plan a wedding.”
“A wedding?” Zenia stared at her and Hydal. “Have you two, ah, agreed upon that?” If so, that had escalated from kissing to spending the rest of their lives together far more rapidly than she had expected.
“Us?” Rhi pointed to Hydal, who gaped in surprise, and then back at herself. “Nah, we’re only beginning to explore each other’s virtuous bits.”
“Is that what tongues are called?” Borti muttered.
Horti dropped his face and put his hands over his ears.
“I meant your wedding.” Rhi waved toward Jev, who stood alertly by the path back to the road, though he was close enough to listen to the planning. Admittedly, this wasn’t the kind of planning Zenia had intended to discuss tonight. “Hux promised he would show me his dance moves at your wedding,” Rhi added. “We didn’t get a chance to dance to the captain’s phonograph music on the boat, due to extenuating circumstances.”
“Ah.” Zenia didn’t know if Rhi was talking about Jev blowing up the enemy craft or the two of them rucking up the blankets in the captain’s cabin.
“Have you set a date yet?”
“No,” Zenia said. “We haven’t even—Jev hasn’t—I mean, why don’t we talk about freeing this dragon?” She closed the book and pointed at her map.
Rhi frowned over at Jev. Zenia blushed. She hadn’t meant to draw attention to him or imply it was his fault he hadn’t proposed. He’d asked her if she wanted him to propose, so she knew he had it on his mind, but his father was still set against Jev marrying a common woman, so Zenia had no idea when she could promise Rhi some wedding dancing.
“I’m not a good swimmer,” Cutter said, thankfully getting back to the more important topic as he pointed at the lake she’d drawn. “We’ll need a boat to get out there.”
“Unless it’s shallow,” Borti said, then looked at Cutter’s dwarven legs. “Very shallow.”
“Ha ha, it won’t be.”
“One imagines there would be a dock with boats somewhere along there,” Rhi said. “How else would the orcs get out there to torture your dragon?”
Zenia couldn’t keep from wincing even though Rhi had likely meant it as a joke—or simply hadn’t been thinking about Zenia’s feelings for the dragon. Or maybe she didn’t grasp that Zenia had feelings for the dragon.
“Most people can swim,” Borti said. “But I agree that the orcs wouldn’t swim out to their houses with their groceries on their backs. Makes you wonder why there are orcs living on that island. Seems inconvenient to travel back and forth.”
“Something to do with their religion, perhaps?” Zenia suggested. “I think I mentioned before that they believe in volcano-based deities. Not surprising since those volcanos have doubtless been a fixture for them for however long their people have lived in that valley.”
“You wouldn’t think living in the shadows of a volcano—or an entire chain of volcanos—would be the wisest thing,” Jev said.
“I’m sure they erupt infrequently.” Zenia thought of the one with evidence of a more recent eruption. Thousands of years was a long time, but the orcs might have stories of the last time they’d had to flee their valley home. Maybe they even had evacuation plans. She leaned back on her hands, the thoughts prompting an idea. “That’s an interesting notion,” she murmured.
“Are you being clever?” Jev asked.
“I’m not sure yet.” Zenia shifted to face Cutter. “As an expert of tunneling and mining and the underworld, what do you know about volcanos?”
“That they’re not a good place to tunnel or mine,” Cutter said. “Lava rock doesn’t contain much in the way of useful ore. Now the mountains back home are different. Full of iron, copper, silver, and more. Gems too. That’s why my people settled there.”
“I was thinking less of mining and more of causing a volcano to erupt. Or maybe only causing it to smoke impressively to make the nearby inhabitants think it could erupt.”
“I think only nature could make an eruption happen,” Cutter said. “Even with magic, there’d have to be a bunch of steam and magma built up deep down in the ground and waiting to burst out. I’ve studied a little earth magic and might be able to tell if that was happening, but it’s unlikely that, just as we ambled up the road, a volcano would be ready to erupt.”
“That’s not surprising.” Even if Zenia had possessed the power to cause an eruption, she wouldn’t truly want to do so. Who knew what far-reaching consequences that might have? “But how about feigning an impending eruption? Could we build a giant fire inside the caldera of one of those volcanoes?”
“With the right magic, you could make some impressive steam.” Cutter waved to Zenia’s chest—and her dragon tear.
She bit her lip. Would the dragon be able to help if they were standing in the valley—or in the volcano next door to the valley? Or would she be too paralyzed to act with orcs all around like ants in a hill?
The gem lay quiescent on her chest, not giving any hint of feelings on the matter.
Zenia looked toward where the unicorn had bedded down, but their guide seemed to be sleeping. She probably had the power to create fake steam from a volcano, but Zenia was reluctant to ask her for help or to rely upon her.
“If we have to,” Zenia said slowly, “is there any way to make a believable smoke using wood?”
“Enh.” Cutter rocked his hand in the air. “To be realistic, it should look more like steam than smoke. If there’s enough room up there—an actual hollowed out caldera that we can work in—I might be able to build something to emit a lot of steam. We’d need to collect a bunch of water and haul it in there. I’m assuming there’s not a lake inside any of the volcanos.”
“From what I saw, just the one in the valley below.”
Cutter scratched his cheek with his hook. “Let me think on it for a spell.”
“I would appreciate that. Thank you.” Zenia looked at her gathered allies. “So, that’s one idea. Convincing the orcs that their volcano is about to erupt and that they need to clear out of the valley. Hopefully without taking their dragon prisoner with them. Does anyone have any other ideas?”
“Nothing that would be an improvement,” Hydal said. “I, too, favor the idea of creating a diversion, rather than attempting to sneak in without one. That would be challenging with so many. I had the thought of starting a wildfire farther up their valley, but your plan, if it works, would be less destructive.”
If it works, Zenia echoed in her mind. She forced a smile and attempted to feel optimistic. Cutter was crafty, and if anyone could create what she’d asked for, he could.
It is a good plan, Eysinor spoke into her mind. She hadn’t lifted her head from her resting spot, but she must have been listening to them instead of sleeping. I wish I had thought of it myself. A sense of wistfulness came with the words. Perhaps I could have done something earlier.
There’s still time.
The unicorn didn’t speak again, but the sense of wistfulness grew stronger, and a sad sigh filled Zenia’s mind.
“A
lso,” Hydal said, drawing Zenia’s attention back to the group, “given how damp the jungle is, coercing a large-scale fire to start would be difficult.”
“Unless you have a dragon capable of breathing fire all over everything,” Rhi said.
“Maybe we can try that after we rescue her,” Zenia murmured.
But once they freed the dragon, Zenia didn’t expect her to want to stay in the area. She hoped the dragon wouldn’t abandon them completely, forcing them to tramp back to the coast on their own, possibly with irate orcs and troll shamans following them the whole way.
15
Jev fought back yawns as he waited for Hydal to relieve him on watch. Hydal had volunteered for the second shift and usually showed up without prompting, but Jev wondered if he would have to go retrieve him. He didn’t want to do that, since Hydal and Rhi had taken their bedrolls to the far side of the stone and were curled up under a blanket behind one of those benches. The sounds of giggles and kisses drifted to his ears. He didn’t think they were doing anything more than that, but he didn’t want to risk interrupting in case he was wrong.
Jev tried not to listen, but it was hard to focus his full attention on the very boring path they had used to enter the sanctuary. He hadn’t seen any sign of recent—or ancient—passage and believed the unicorn was right, that the orcs avoided this place. Hemmed in by the bamboo forest, the sanctuary remained quiet and peaceful, with the hoots of monkeys and chirping of cicadas more distant than usual. He never would have found this place on his own and grudgingly admitted the unicorn had been a good guide so far.
When Jev shifted to flex his legs and stretch his back, he noticed someone rising from the group of sleeping figures in their little camp. Borti, Horti, Cutter, and Zenia had stayed together, nearer the base of the stone. Its glow had mostly faded shortly after their meeting broke up, but a faint light still emanated from the bottom of the cap, as if some bioluminescent vegetation grew over the stone. Thus, he was able to pick out someone heading for the water. Zenia, he was fairly certain, since she was more slender than the other three.
Agents of the Crown- The Complete Series Page 127
