by Cyn Bagley
Even though she was too young to think of a husband and family, she did wonder if it would affect her fertility too. This was something she would need to ask her grandfather. Of course there were taboos… there were always taboos when dealing with two species.
As if he had a compass in his head, he led her further into the passageways until they found Hilda and Michael. The two of them were packing.
“What’s going on?” Kayla asked. Hilda was checking her weapons and running her finger down the blade. She picked up an old cloth and polished one of her knives.
Hilda continued polishing, then once the knife was bright, she put it in a sheath.
“We,” Hilda jabbed her finger at Michael, who was lying on the bed with his leg supported by a pillow. Kayla frowned. A quick glance told her that the knee was weak, but able to support his weight.
Hilda continued, “are going to the Koenigstadt to report to the king about the doings in Delhaven.” Her glance at Michael was weighted with meaning.
“And us?” asked Kayla. She waited curiously for Hilda’s answer.
“You and Davi will stay here.”
“Are you my mother?” Kayla asked. She threw her head back. “Can you make decisions for me?” Davi touched her hand. “We should come with you.” Kayla was supposed to calm Davi down when he went into one of his rages. Kayla could feel him calm her.
“Kayla,” Davi said. Kayla jumped. It was the first time she had heard his voice outside her head. It was warm, young, and slightly hesitant. “We don’t know if we would be considered allies or enemies. We don’t know what this king would do if he got hands on a dragonling and blacksmith.”
Kayla bowed her head. She knew that the dragons and humans had been at war for quite a while. Just because two people had become dragon friends didn’t mean that the entire human species was safe.
She could almost hear her mother’s voice tell her over and over that humans were fickle. They might not stay her friends if they knew she was a dwarf.
Most humans were terrified of dragons and hated dwarfs because they allied with dragons. Before the dragons were thrown out of the human kingdoms, they were hated for their engineering skills and innovations. It just showed that humans hated anything that was different.
“So where will we stay?” she asked. She knew the answer. It would involve training with the bond. It would be the exact same argument that her grandfather had with her mother before they escaped.
“You need training,” Hilda said, still working hard to get everything to fit into the pack. And there it was. The big excuse.
Davi stood quietly, watching Hilda and Kayla. Kayla pulled her arms around her chest. “We have done fine so far,” she said to Hilda. Hilda turned around, noticed the arms, the pursed lips, and then Hilda raised an eyebrow.
“I won’t tell you that you should mind your elders,” Hilda said. Kayla almost opened her mouth. Hilda pushed through, “but you do need training. You know it. I know it.” She pointed at Davi. “Davi knows it. The reason Davi has won is because he hasn’t known it was impossible. That can be good or bad. This time he almost didn’t survive the impossible. You two need training.”
Kayla felt that stubborn feeling lodge in her chest. She knew that she should just say “Yes, ma’am,” and do what she wanted anyway. Instead she stomped out of the room. Davi gave a helpless look at Michael, who gave him a private grin, then followed her.
“So,” Michael said, “you wanna bet they will be following us?”
Hilda laughed. “I won’t bet on that. But how about a bet on how many days before they catch up to us?”
They shook hands. It was a good thing Kayla hadn’t heard the two of them. She was on her way to present her reasons for traveling with Michael and Hilda. If that didn’t work, well, after riffling through Davi’s thoughts, she knew that the two of them had the skills to survive and follow Michael and Hilda.
Davi just sighed. Looks like he was going along for the ride this time. He was fire and air, but she was all earth elemental with a lot of granite underneath it all.
On the Mountain
Draugr
The Draugr settled in, spying on the main entrance of the cavern. It had taken him days to find the dwarfs. He had stomped through paths, slipped through thorny bushes, and ripped apart rabbits and small animals for food. He was starving. He could feel his brain slowly deplete as the last of the magic from his gorging at the last village was used by his body.
A magic field of energy emanated from the cavern, forcing him to hide in the bushes. It thrummed and vibrated through his body as he watched and listened. Inside that cavern was magic beyond his ken. He was thinking of ways he could get in and feast for days on the magic inside when he saw the horses being taken out of the mouth of the cave. Two people, a man and a woman, had mounted the horses. There were packs on the the backs of the horses.
The horses must have been able to smell him from afar because one of them skittered sideways. The Draugr heard a male say, “There, there.” The sound soothed the horse. If they had been noticing the horse’s actions or even its ears, they would have found him because the horse flickered its ears at him, snorted, and bobbed its head. But they didn’t have the young man with them who could read the horse’s mind.
The man, woman, and horses headed down the path toward the main road. The Draugr slunk down into the bushes. He could sense the magic spilling out of them. One of them had the magic of fire and the other water. Neither one of them was a danger to him. Already he knew that most of the humans’ defensive weapons couldn’t kill him.
But the magic that smelled so good and made him drool was in the cavern. He let them go. He went into a magical stupor, so that he didn’t use the last of his energies. In a few hours he would find a way into the cavern in the darkness. The darkness made him stronger and more terrible. And so he waited.
When the sun’s rays slid down the mountain and colored the bare land around the cave mouth, he opened his eyes. He heard the voices of younglings. They carried backpacks.
“Did they see you?” asked the young girl. Her magic shown in his mind’s eye, but it was more than fire.
“I left changelings to cover our tracks. They won’t know for days.”
The girl started walking down the path and the young man followed her. When he caught sight of the energy emanating from the young man, his hunger raged anew. This was the magic he had been sensing. It had brought him to the cave.
Thinking about being cautious was not something in his nature. But this young man could be a predator. If he could rip this energy from the young man, then he would be unstoppable. Still he was cautious. He couldn’t attack them in front of the cavern.
He shifted, and the girl turned in his direction. “Can you smell that?” she asked the young man.
He held still. The young man looked and then said, “Let’s go. You’re just nervous. If we hurry, we’ll catch up to them in a day or two.” He laughed.
After the two of them rounded a corner, the Draugr sniffed. He could smell the magic. When they camped, or his hunger became too great, then he would take them both down. The Draugr had no emotions except hunger and anger. So he shuffled on a path paralleling them, keeping his distance so that the girl didn’t smell him. He would feast tonight. If he could, he would have smiled.
Chapter Twenty-four
South of Koenigstadt
Michael Ordson
Hilda pulled out a map and compass that one of the dwarfs had given her just before they left the dragon’s cavern and dwarf stronghold. “Do you know where we are in relationship to this map?” she asked.
Michael and Hilda were lost again. Michael could count, using all his fingers and toes, how many times he had been lost. This was the first time he had been lost with Hilda. “Don’t you know how to read maps?”
It was easier to tease his sister than it was to figure out where they were on that silly map. “Look,” he tried to sound caring, but ended up sounding co
ndescending. Hilda glared at him.
“I have a device that will tell me what direction to go, although if we head straight north, we will eventually end up around or near the big city.”
Hilda heaved a sigh, folded the map, and shoved it back into the pack. “Okay,” she said. “It would be faster to follow your device than to try and read this thing. It looks like it is a completely underground map anyway. It serves me right for accepting a map from a dwarf.”
Michael laughed. He pulled out a stone that hung on a long necklace. Then he mumbled something. The stone began to glow with an inner light. He then turned around in different directions. The stone dimmed when he turned back toward the dragon’s cavern. “Okay, it works,” he said.
Hilda looked at him suspiciously. “So when did your magic come back.”
Michael looked down and then up. He hoped that the lie would sound reasonable, but Hilda was one smart sister. “I started gaining back some of my power when I began teaching Kayla.”
The best lies are the ones that are mostly truth. Plus it wasn’t really a lie if he didn’t mention the undine. The undine agreed with him. Normally Hilda’s elemental, Sassy, would have noticed the undine. But Hilda was more worried about the message she carried, and Sassy was distracted. Michael was sure it wouldn’t last long though.
The day wore on, and Michael finally had to ask for a rest. He knew Hilda needed one, but she was too stubborn to ask. He blamed the next rest stop on his weak leg. Also, getting her to eat was becoming a problem.
She was so focused on getting to the King’s men and letting them take care of this problem that she was forgetting to eat, sleep, or rest. Her body would not be able to sustain the travel at this rate.
Before they climbed back on their horses and headed north, Michael heard a rustle in the brush near the road. He looked, listened, and smelled, but didn’t see anything. It must have been a rabbit.
He focused on Hilda’s back and as he adjusted his body to the horse’s gait, he watched for signs that she was tiring.
Kayla Hellswarth
“I told you they would be easy to catch,” said Davi.
She shushed him when Michael turned in their direction. They sank back into the bushes. When Hilda and Michael settled on their saddles and rode away, the two of them stood up.
They were younger, stronger, and had the magic to sustain them. Still, if Michael hadn’t stopped so often, they wouldn’t have caught up to them this quickly. At this rate, it would take a few days to get to the main city.
When Hilda and Michael rode around the bend, they climbed out of the bushes and onto the road. Kayla began to walk quickly. Davi kept up with her easily.
She could feel the cold air pull in and out of her lungs. The clouds curled and darkened above them. Every once in awhile a small drop hit her face. She turned toward Davi and saw the smile and longing. She could feel his longing to fly above the clouds and to gambol above and below them. It took the edge off of her pain and she wanted to shout. She smiled back at him.
The Draugr watched and shuffled behind.
South of Koenigstadt
Davi Dracson
Davi and Kayla followed Hilda and Michael for hours. When the siblings settled down for the night Davi broke out some dried meat and cheese, and they ate in silence.
They didn’t start a fire, but Davi wrapped his arms around her to keep Kayla warm. He shivered as the cold wind slid down his back. The one blanket they had managed to swipe barely covered both of them.
The blacksmith would have discovered their disappearance by now. Although Kayla didn’t have much to say about her grandfather other than he abandoned her and her mother. Her eyes had filled with tears when she said that. It had only been a few days since she had seen her mother murdered.
When she talked, he could see the giant rip her mother apart. Davi almost swore. He’d felt black smoke fill his lungs as he imagined burning the giant alive. She had touched his hand, knowing his emotions, and the smoke disappeared. She laid her head against his chest and he felt at peace.
Varia had offered to train him, but his loyalties were divided. He respected Hilda. In the dragon community, his fondness for a human could get him killed. The older dragons hated and feared the younger race. Humans were smaller and less intelligent, and they bred at an amazing rate. Plus they were very good at building on each other’s achievements.
Varia had told him that there was one faction that wanted to exterminate humans as if they were rats. She was at the head of a faction that wanted to try diplomacy. Humans could be treacherous, but dragons were too. However, when a dragon made a treaty, he was bound by the magic in his blood. There were no safeguards with humans. They had been known to break treaties without ill-effects.
A few of the dragon counsel had sent Davi into the human world to see if one of them could learn human behaviors. It had been a long shot.
Davi chuckled when he thought of Hilda’s diplomacy style. To learn real diplomacy, he would need to be trained by a higher caste. His best choice would be to enter the mage university. The only question was whether to enter as a lone student or as his real self. It was a risk to enter as himself. Mages still used dragon materials in their spells. He shuddered. Kayla slept quietly in his arms.
He would have to ask Kayla. He did not dig into her psyche. There were traps for the unknowing. Something Varia said. Because Kayla had not been trained as a blacksmith, she could crack under his probing.
Davi could feel Kayla’s warmth against his torso. He closed his eyes. It was then he heard a stealthy sound. At first it sounded like the rustling of a small animal and then there was a crack. It was loud enough to make him lift his head and look around him. He couldn’t see anything so he settled back under the blanket.
He had set a few wards around them, some of the wards that he had learned from Michael, when he traveled with him to Hilda’s Inn. They could both sleep and the wards would warn them.
He closed his eyes, and listened to Kayla’s breathing. He fell asleep, thinking of Varia, and feeling Kayla’s warmth.
Draugr
The woods had been swarming with dwarfs looking for the dragonling and his newly made blacksmith. At one point, the dwarfs and the Draugr converged at the same place. He climbed up a tree and settled in the fork of the tree to watch the dwarfs as they searched the underbrush.
If he had stayed in his usual hiding place they would have found him. This time they did find a piece of his clothing with his stick on it. One of the dwarfs tucked the cloth in a bag.
The Draugr’s brain was foggy and he could feel his thoughts swim away. He did know that this many dwarfs searching the woods meant that they could pull him apart even if he killed a few. So he stayed still and watched. He could have told them that they were only a few miles away from the children.
Last night he had watched them sleep. He should have attacked then, except he could see a red light around the children. If he had touched the lights, the two of them would have been warned. He had seen lights like that in the mage’s tower, so he was wary of what they could do to him.
But they were young, they would forget. When that happened, the magic that emanated from the two of them would be his. His stomach growled.
The dwarf under the tree had a stick and was punching the ground under the tree. He didn’t look up. The Draugr relaxed.
If he had been a normal Draugr, he would have attacked the dwarf right then. It was separated from the group and was focused on the children. Still he would have to assuage his hunger with something. He smelled a deer huddled a few yards away. It would be night soon and he would consume the animal.
He wasn’t mindless yet.
He heard a shout and the dwarf under his tree turned away. He could hear the excited sound of the dwarfs. They had found the dragonling’s trail. Then the dwarfs moved in the opposite direction from the children.
For a moment the spymaster emerged and the hunger abated. The spymaster was amused. So the
children knew how to lay a false trail. If he didn’t need the magic to stay himself under the monster, he would have left them then. But, it was either him or them. Both the Draugr and the spymaster agreed. To stay thinking, they needed to drink the blood and eat the flesh of the bonded ones.
Only this combination would keep him sane for a long time. He knew it in his blood and flesh. The spymaster could feel regret, but not the Draugr. The Draugr’s determination would win. He had proven his will to survive by killing the black mage who turned them.
Chapter Twenty-five
South of Koenigstadt
Draugr
The Draugr’s clarity lasted until nightfall, and then his thoughts slipped away from him. He clumped, stomped, and crashed through the bushes. The thorns pushed against him, piercing his flesh. He didn’t feel the sharp thorns or the scratches. Each scratch, each healing, took away a little more of the magic he had consumed. The black mage he had eaten was a distant memory.
The children he had eaten in the dwarf village still sustained him. But the children and the animals that he had consumed since the mage hadn’t given him the jolt that that consuming the mage. The memory of the blood and flesh in his hands and mouth made his stomach growl harder and harder. He pushed through. He needed to get his hands on the dragonling and his companion. Only the urge to eat pushed him now.
He could smell the two of them. He didn’t stay on the path. When a Draugr got the scent he couldn’t be turned from his purpose. He was now the hound--consumed by the smell, the feel, and the taste.
He was going at full speed when he hit a transparent wall. Beyond the wall was a clearing. He tried again to go through it, but bounced back. Again and again.
Then he heard a voice which woke him a little. He could smell magic that was greater than that of the two he had been following. He felt something tighten across his throat and he looked up.
