Dragon Rift: Riders of Fire, Book Three - A Dragons’ Realm Novel

by Eileen Mueller

  §

  Ezaara gripped a rocky outcrop so tight, her fingers ached. Blood flooded her mouth from biting her lip to stop herself from screaming. Her stomach roiled with nausea. 000 left the cavern, slamming the door. Roberto was crawling agonizingly slowly back to the wall he was chained to. Those few short paces took him forever. When he got there, he slumped, his face a bloody mess. His jerkin was slashed, encrusted with dried blood and limplock. Gritting his teeth, he fumbled at his sleeve with awkward fingers. His eyelids drooped and he fell into a fitful doze.

  She’d been a fool. Why had she listened to the council? Tonio’s old grudge had broken the man she loved. Ezaara longed to mind-meld with Roberto, but Zens might sense her, so she kept her mind submerged, waiting for Roberto to wake.

  Hours later, Roberto stirred and looked around the cavern. Ezaara started, dropping her flatbread. He seemed more alert than earlier, flexing his fingers, rotating his ankles and hands. Shards, no. He no longer had complete control over them. His fingers were stiff, curled like claws. Limplock was slowly paralyzing him.

  Her nightmare had been two nights ago. He’d be dead in a day. Maybe less—he’d had a lot of limplock. Ezaara’s throat tightened. She had to do something. Ezaara chewed more freshweed, and waited impatiently for it to take effect. Tharuk troops regularly tromped along the main tunnel, so she couldn’t use that. She’d have to risk going deeper into the mountain. Would this maze of tunnels lead her to Roberto? There was only one way to find out.

  She cast her mind out cautiously, but found nothing. Not a trace of a tharuk mind bender, nor Zens. She shook a vial of dragon’s breath, covered it with a rag to dim its light, and set off. The tunnel twisted, angling toward Roberto’s cell. She crawled on. Every scrape of her hands and knees on rock was nothing compared to how Roberto was suffering. After a while, a breeze wafted across her cheek. Stopping, she shone the dragon’s breath around the tunnel. In the stone roof was a narrow opening. Ezaara hoisted herself up and squeezed into the gap. Gods, she could barely fit. On her stomach and elbows, with the vial of light between her lips, she dragged herself along this new shaft. Her rucksack caught on rock. She tugged. Something gave—with a crack. Ezaara wriggled off her straps and shone her light. The blade of her hacksaw had been sticking out of her rucksack and snapped off. Of all the cursed luck. She stuffed the broken blade back in and kept going.

  Similar-sized tunnels branched off this one, but Ezaara stayed her course, elbows scraped raw. The passage plunged down to an opening. Ezaara pocketed her light, heart thudding, and peeked out.

  A flickering torch illuminated a heavy wooden door—like Roberto’s—barred with a wooden beam. No one was in sight. Had she found his holding cavern? Or was Zens behind that door? Her heart raced. Gods, not Zens.

  Ezaara dropped to the ground with a soft thud, rolling to her feet. She lifted the bar from the door, staggering under the load, and stowed it in the shadows.

  Further down the tunnel, a tharuk snarled.

  Her heart whacking against her ribs, she opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind her.

  “You came back.” Roberto, slumped against the wall, smiled. His teeth were stained with blood. He lifted a cramped finger to his lips. “Please don’t speak. We don’t want to wake 000. Keep your thoughts calm. Zens is asleep, but not for long.”

  Ezaara sped across the floor and knelt beside him. She kissed his bloodstained lips, pulling back when he winced. “I’m sorry, I should have come earlier. He’s hurt you so badly …”

  “Do you have a hacksaw? Something to cut my chains?”

  “Yes, but I broke it …” She sawed his chains, barely scratching them with the broken, blunted blade. She yanked them, but they were firmly anchored into the stone. “I can’t free you.” Ezaara opened her healer’s pouch. “But I can heal you. What’s worst?”

  “Leave the blood. Do it surreptitiously so he doesn’t notice.”

  “I’ll start with limplock remedy.”

  “And clear-mind, so I can see your face.”

  Roberto was a mess. Ezaara fought to keep her despair under control. If Zens woke, he’d sense her. Her hands trembled as she shook the yellow granules onto Roberto’s tongue.

  He swallowed them and slumped back against the wall. “So tired.”

  “You need food. Zens has been starving you.” She popped a small piece of flatbread and two clear-mind berries into Roberto’s mouth.

  He chewed, his bent fingers scrabbling at her wrist. “You know I love you?”

  “And I love you too.” She fed him some more and he wolfed it down. The gray film over his eyes was fading, so Ezaara gave him powdered dragon’s scale. “What’s next?”

  “I can see again. You’re beautiful.” He smiled, then winced. “My ribs ache and the wounds on my back may be festering.” Roberto pointed at his front tooth. “This one’s loose.”

  Ezaara unstopped a vial of piaua, put a drop on her finger, and rubbed it into his gum. She lifted his jerkin and applied more to the bruising on his ribs. Two of the wounds on his back were inflamed, oozing pus. There was no time for clean herb, so she dribbled piaua on them, hoping his body could fight the infection once the wounds had closed.

  “My nose aches.”

  The bridge of his nose was swollen. She pressed it and he winced. “I think it’s broken. Here, let me see what I can do.” She rubbed piaua on it and the bone straightened. “I’m leaving the blood. With that swollen eye, I doubt Zens and 000 will notice anything’s been healed.”

  “Good idea. Um … I know another healing remedy …” He grinned.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “We’ll have to be careful so Zens doesn’t sense us.”

  “Just a small kiss, then?”

  The spark in Roberto’s ebony eyes was his only answer. Their lips brushed. With the tang of Roberto’s blood on her lips, Ezaara kissed him. His dark blue sathir mixed with hers, swirling around them. Like a bird basking in the sun, love unfurled inside her, in a warm glow.

  Roberto stopped, holding her face in his hands. He gasped. “We can’t. Zens will sense us.”

  “I’m watching through that wall. I see every time they beat you.” Ezaara lips trembled. “We have to get you out of here.”

  “Are you alone?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought as much. Tonio said they wouldn’t come after me if I got caught.” Roberto got to his feet and stretched, his shackles clinking. “That’s much better. Thank you.”

  “You look good.” Well, that was an exaggeration. Still battered, he was a mess. “Too good.”

  “And now?” He slumped, drooping his head, his mouth lolling open and fingers curling inward.

  “Like before,” Ezaara said, smiling, trying to encourage him.

  Footfalls thudded out in the corridor.

  “Quick, up there,” Roberto pointed to a narrow hole above his head, shrouded in shadow. “Use this ventilation shaft.”

  “But I unbarred the door. They’ll see.” A bolt of panic shot through her. She stuffed the hacksaw blade into her rucksack.

  “What’s this? Bar gone?” a tharuk grunted outside the door. Wood clattered to the floor. “Hidden? Why?”

  Another tharuk yowled. Scuffling echoed in the tunnel.

  “Hurry, on my shoulders. Now.”

  She scrambled onto Roberto’s injured back and hoisted herself inside the shaft. Her cloak caught on the edge. She yanked, ripping the corner, leaving a tiny scrap hanging on the lip of the shaft. The door thudded open and tharuks bowled inside. Hopefully no one would notice it. She scrambled along the tunnel, Roberto’s fresh screams slicing through the air.

  Spangles

  Tomaaz awoke to someone shaking him in the dark. He fumbled for his healer’s pouch next to the bed and shook a vial of dragon’s breath, illuminating a face. “Kierion? How did you get in here?”

  Grinning, Kierion shrugged. “Ready to go?” He strode to Taliesin’s bed and woke him.
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  “Should we really bring Taliesin? He’s just a boy.” He’d been so traumatized in Death Valley, how would he react to tharuks? “What about food? I—”

  “Maaz, I want to come,” Taliesin said, hopping out of bed.

  “It’ll do him good. Come on, Tomaaz, you’re being an old woman. Let’s go before someone sees us.”

  Tomaaz yanked on his boots, helped Taliesin dress and scribbled a note on parchment for his parents. They extinguished the dragon’s breath and sneaked out to the den.

  Riona was waiting next to Maazini with full saddlebags. “Morning, Tomaaz,” Maazini melded. “I’m looking forward to killing some tharuks today.”

  “Maazini and Kierion, I’m worried about Taliesin.” He spoke aloud so they could both hear him.

  “Here, try this.” Kierion threw something to Tomaaz. It clinked as he caught it. “That’s heavy.” He shook it out. It was a tiny chain mail vest, the right size for Taliesin. “Maazini, could you give me some light?” Tomaaz asked, helping the lad into it.

  Taliesin stroked the chain mail, eyes bright in a flame from Maazini’s jaws.

  They climbed upon their dragons, Taliesin in front of Tomaaz. Hopefully, he wouldn’t regret bringing him.

  “Here, breakfast to eat on the way.” Kierion threw them two small packages, then Riona bunched her legs and took off.

  Maazini and Riona flew up the mountain face to the top of Dragon’s Teeth, then plunged down the southern drop under Heaven’s Peak. Tomaaz’s stomach dropped. Wind flicked Taliesin’s hair into Tomaaz’s face. The early rays of dawn tinged the snow gold as Maazini and Riona followed the ring of Dragon’s Teeth west. Soon, they were above the northern tip of Great Spanglewood Forest, which spread like a haphazardly-thrown rug all the way to the foot of the Terramites. Tomaaz pulled Taliesin firmly against him, relieved when the boy’s tense body relaxed.

  Riona and Maazini landed in a snowy clearing among towering strongwood trees. They walked toward three cabins nestled at the edge of the trees. Taliesin’s eyes were enormous as he gazed around at the forest—very different to the barren hills of Death Valley.

  “Welcome to Mage Gate,” Kierion said.

  “Hope you’ve got some food here,” said Tomaaz. “It’s been ages since that paltry breakfast.”

  “There’s nothing quite like wizard porridge,” Kierion chuckled.

  “The trees are so green, even in winter,” Taliesin piped up, voice still croaky from years of disuse.

  “It’s the spangles. They keep the trees evergreen, even when they’re not,” said Kierion.

  “Spangles?” Taliesin frowned. “When I was a littling, Ma told me a bedtime story about spangles.”

  This was new. Taliesin seldom spoke of his childhood.

  “She said that Anakisha’s littlings sat at her feet while the spangles perched on her knees, telling her littling stories. Ma said she always slept better after a spangle’s tale.”

  Taliesin’s mother was Anakisha’s child? That meant Taliesin was her grandson. No wonder he had the gift of prophecy. Kierion shot Tomaaz a glance. He’d noticed too. “So, spangles are like magical story tellers?” asked Tomaaz.

  Kierion laughed. “Magical, yes. Story tellers, no. But I’ve never seen one.”

  A door opened and a tall gangly man, with the bushiest eyebrows Tomaaz had ever seen, strode across the snow to greet them, his mage cloak creating eddies of snow. A Naobian wizard, about Tomaaz’s age, kept pace with him, while Kierion’s friend, Fenni, jogged after him.

  “I’m Master Giddi,” said the mage. “Are you Marlies’ boy?”

  The wizard’s grip was firm with more than a trickle of magic zapping across Tomaaz’s hand. “Yes, I am.”

  “Why’s the lad so round-eyed?” Fenni asked Kierion and Tomaaz.

  Tomaaz shrugged. “He’s been in Death Valley for so long, he hasn’t seen a forest in ages.”

  A deep belly laugh broke out from Master Giddi. “He’s a seer, that one.” He gestured at Taliesin.

  “Yes, we’ve discovered his gift,” answered Tomaaz. How did the master mage know?

  Giddi knelt before Taliesin and looked him in the eye, wriggling his eyebrows like large hairy caterpillars. “They’re spangles, lad. Aren’t they fascinating?”

  “Where?” Fenni glanced around. Tomaaz and Kierion craned their necks, searching too.

  Jael laughed now. “You mean, none of you have ever seen them?”

  “What’s going on?” asked Tomaaz.

  Master Giddi smiled. “All around you. Those shimmering beings in the trees.”

  Fenni’s face lit up. “Kierion, I saw them that time you got knocked out by tharuks.”

  Tomaaz had no idea what they were looking at—he couldn’t see a thing.

  “What?” thundered Giddi, glaring at Fenni. “You told me Kierion was hurt, but not that he was knocked out!”

  §

  It was pitch black when Tomaaz and Taliesin returned home. They’d ended up staying overnight at Mage Gate and fighting tharuks the next day, after sending a message home to Ma and Pa via a passing blue guard. Now they were dog-tired, although Taliesin was the bubbliest Tomaaz had ever seen—almost like he’d never been enslaved. Kierion had been right, the trip had done him good, despite them battling tharuks. Tomaaz dropped Taliesin on the infirmary ledge and Ma took him inside.

  “Let’s go and find Ezaara. The council doesn’t approve of us fighting with mages, but maybe as Queen’s Rider she can influence them.” They flew across the basin. Tomaaz patted Maazini’s neck as they touched down on the ledge outside Zaarusha’s empty den. “Great job today, Maazini. You’ve recovered well. Twenty tharuks was a good hunt.” His dragon furled his wings and he slid from the saddle, thunking to the ground. “And my hip’s good again too.”

  “Twenty-two tharuks actually, while you only killed ten.”

  “Hey, great swathes of fire are much more efficient than arrows, so you have an unfair advantage.”

  “And the mages?”

  “They have an unfair advantage too,” said Tomaaz, digging strips of dried beef out of Maazini’s saddlebags and feeding them to him. Tomaaz ate one, too. “Wizard fire is pretty potent, so, all in all, I think every kill of mine should equate to three or four of yours and theirs.”

  “Four to one?” Maazini blinked a large golden eye. “Two to one is the best you’ll get.”

  “All right, so my ten to your twenty-two, still means I’m only one down.”

  “I’m not a numbers dragon,” Maazini snorted. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Tomaaz laughed. “I’ll see if Ezaara agrees with us about fighting with mages. If she’s keen, we’ll go straight to Lars.”

  “I’ve tried to meld with Zaarusha, but I can’t sense her.”

  “That’s odd, it’s so late.” Not that it being dark would ever stop Ezaara going out. He’d seen her out with Zaarusha when she couldn’t sleep, while he’d been roaming the mountainside feeling bad about leaving Roberto in Death Valley. “I’ll just be a moment.”

  Ezaara’s cavern was empty. A few of her clothes were tossed across the bed. Her healer’s pouch was gone. So were her boots, weapons and cloak.

  Maazini melded with him. “I’ve checked with the blue guards and other dragons. No one’s seen Ezaara or Zaarusha since the feast. They’d assumed they were resting”

  “That was two days ago. Where could she be?” As Tomaaz ran to the ledge, he knew the answer—sick of the council’s inaction, Ezaara had taken matters into her own hands and gone to Death Valley. By the dragon gods, he’d told her he’d rescue Roberto if the council didn’t, but he’d forgotten all about it.

  §

  Kierion banged on Lars’ door. He shuffled from foot to foot until Lars opened it, and then burst into the living area. “Adelina’s disappeared.” He clenched and unclenched his fists, wanting to punch something. Why had he delayed coming back to Dragons’ Hold a day, to hunt a few more tharuks? Sure, he’d been saving lives, bu
t it was meaningless if he lost Adelina.

  Lars’ gaze was sharp. “When did you last see her?”

  “At the race celebration, but something wasn’t right. I’ve, um, been away since. She’s not here. No one’s seen her since the feast.” Lars raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, but Kierion interrupted, “And I mean no one! You know me, Lars, no stone unturned.”

  “Yes.” Lars’ voice was wry. “You are thorough.”

  Kierion nodded, waiting.

  “Did she say anything about Roberto?” Lars asked.

  “Only that it was hard with him gone, him being her only family and all.”

  Lars scratched his beard. “She could have gone after her brother.”

  “Why haven’t you gone after him?”

  “There are bigger things at stake.” Lars was hedging. “We believe Roberto could still be gathering information vital to the realm, despite the circumstances.”

  “We can’t let Adelina go to Death Valley on her own.”

  “I’ll have to talk with Tonio and Aidan, master of battle, before we decide what action to take.”

  From Lars’ tone, it wasn’t likely he’d take action. Kierion thrust his clenched fists behind his back.

  “Now, Kierion,” Lars said. “You mentioned you’ve been away since the feast. You didn’t happen to visit two particular young wizards at Mage Gate against my orders, did you?”

  “I—” Kierion was saved by a sharp rap at the door.

  When Lars opened it, Tomaaz strode in. “Master Lars, Ezaara and Zaarusha are gone.”

  Lars’ brow furrowed. “Kierion, Tomaaz, please, take a seat.”

  Tomaaz’s body was taut as he perched on the front of his chair. “Ezaara was at the opening of the feast, but then she left and no one’s seen her since.”

  “And Zaarusha?”

  “Gone too.”

  “What? No queen and no Queen’s Rider!” Lars paced back and forth. “That’ll give the gossips a feast.”

  Last time Ezaara had disappeared, she’d gone to the Wastelands to save Master Roberto. There were already rumors that they cared about each other, the way Kierion cared for Adelina. When she’d returned, the queen had been poisoned. No doubt, Zaarusha would never let her go into danger alone again. No, they were a truer partnership than ever. His strong bond with Riona was a pale shade of what the queen and Queen’s Rider had. If Ezaara loved Roberto, Zaarusha would go too. Kierion piped up, “Tomaaz, Adelina’s gone too, with Linaia.”