Her high-pitched screeches were punctuated by Grey’s intermittent grunts as he tried to get her under control.
Their struggle moved them closer to the fire, and I cried out a warning to Grey. That broke his concentration, and she got him square on the jaw. I winced as if she’d actually struck me instead of him.
Now Grey got serious, using his greater height and weight to advantage. He swung her round by her left arm, pulling down abruptly to knock her off balance. Her scream of rage was cut off with an “oopf” as she tumbled to the ground. Grey scrambled to pin her down. She kicked at him, and Traz let out an indignant squawk when she almost got Grey where it counted.
But it was over a moment later. The woman lay beneath Grey, who used his weight to hold her down. They both were breathing heavily. She spit in Grey’s face, and he shook it off.
“That’s enough,” he said in a loud, stern voice I scarcely recognized. “Donavah, get something to tie her hands.”
She spit at him again.
I knew I didn’t have any rope in my pack. “Traz, lend me your sling.”
With a grin that suggested he was enjoying this far too much, he dug it out of his pocket and handed it to me.
The woman was still struggling against Grey, and I rushed over. He forced her wrists together, and I hesitantly started wrapping the thongs around them. Once satisfied she couldn’t slip her hands out, Grey took over and bound her securely, then wiped off his face with a revolted expression. When she made a motion with her jaw as if she were going to spit yet again, Grey raised his hand as if to strike her.
“I’d rather not,” he said. The venom in his voice sent a chill down my spine and even gave the woman pause. She swallowed.
Grey grabbed the collar of her shirt and pulled her to a sitting position. I stepped away because something about this woman unsettled me, and it didn’t matter that her hands were bound.
She glanced over at me, and our eyes met. Her gaze pierced me, leaving me feeling as if she could read my soul.
“It was you,” she said in a quiet voice.
I took another step back. “What was me?” I said the words so softly I wasn’t even sure I spoke them aloud.
“I felt you. That’s what drew me here.”
Grey looked at me, a confused scowl on his face. Traz moved to my side, as if I needed his protection. I just shook my head.
Her lip curled and she shrugged in a disdainful way. “As you wish.” She glared back at Grey. “What are you going to do with me now?”
He rose to his feet and started brushing the dirt off his clothes. “We’ll have to wait and see. But I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m so reassured.”
Grey just threw her a dirty look and walked away.
Surprisingly, it was Traz who remembered his manners first. “I’m Traz,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Why would I be wanting to tell you that?”
Annoyance began to take the edge off my fear. “Is politeness something you don’t do around here?”
She let out a snort of disgust and raised her bound hands toward me in answer. Perhaps she had a point there. Still, if she hadn’t attacked Grey, she wouldn’t be in this predicament now.
Undeterred, Traz went over to the fire and looked in the supper pot sitting next to it. “Well, luckily Donavah hasn’t gotten around to washing the dishes yet. There’s not much, but you can have what’s left.” He scraped out the last bits of stew gravy into a bowl and handed it to her.
Her eyes softened a little as she took the food and awkwardly slurped it out of the bowl. I moved closer to the fire, hoping its warmth would chase away some of the chill that this woman brought to my heart.
Grey took the first watch. When he woke me, he merely commented that our captive had neither slept nor spoken. Then he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down.
I sat across the fire from the woman. She stared at me, and I shivered. Was she trying to read my mind or something? All my senses were alert, but nothing disturbed the life vibrations except her anger, and that was understandable enough.
After awhile, she spoke, not making any effort to keep her voice down. “Your boyfriend is a prick, but the kid’s not bad.”
“My boyfriend?” I asked with a surprised gulp. My face burned. “He’s not—”
“Uh huh,” she interrupted. “If he’s not, you wish he was, don’t you?”
My eyes shot to where Grey lay. I hoped he’d fallen asleep and would stay that way. My feelings for him weren’t something I wanted discussed, not with the stranger or anyone else, much less in front of him.
“So what’s wrong with the dragon?” she asked.
“Huh?” Could this possibly be a more disconcerting conversation? “How do you know there’s something wrong with her?”
The woman rolled her eyes.
“It’s pretty obvious to anyone with the wit to perceive it.” Her tone implied that I lacked that wit.
Xyla stirred just then, as if our talking about her penetrated her sleep. Her eyes, half open, glittered in the firelight. I wanted to go over to her, to touch her, to try to lend her strength, but I needed to keep an eye on this woman.
She looked over at the dragon, too, and when she did, the hard look melted from her face. Then she let out a startled gasp. “Xyla says I must lead you to Delaron.”
My insides froze. Xyla had spoken to this woman. And hadn’t included me.
Then to me Xyla said, “She is not a danger. She will help you.”
I rose to my feet, torn between not wanting to take my eyes off the woman and wanting the comfort of being close to the dragon.
“But Xyla,” I said, “she attacked Grey. She would’ve killed him if she could’ve.”
“She understands now. You can trust her. She will help.” And the pinpoints of reflected firelight disappeared as Xyla closed her eyes.
When the woman turned back to me, her face was no longer angry. “My name is Shandry,” she said. “I will do as Xyla says.”
I plopped back down. How could Xyla be so sure this Shandry could be trusted? Could I bring myself to trust her? She’d practically admitted that it was her spirit I’d met while meditating, that she’d sought us out because of that.
Xyla’s voice inside my head cut through my confusion. “Untie her,” she commanded in a tone that was not to be contradicted.
I swallowed, trying to suppress my own feelings. Then I went over to Shandry, who watched my every move with a completely unreadable look on her face.
“Xyla says I’m to untie you.” I wanted it to be very clear that this was the dragon’s idea, not mine. I crouched next to Shandry, and she held out her hands to me.
As I fiddled with the knot, I saw that for all his anger, Grey hadn’t been cruel in binding her wrists. It was cleverly done, the way he’d made it so she couldn’t possibly free herself, but in a way that wasn’t painful and didn’t cut off the circulation. It took a frustratingly long time to loosen the knots. More than once I was tempted to cut them, but I had a feeling that ruining Traz’s sling would be a mistake. Not only would it mean one less hunting implement—which we couldn’t afford to lose in our current circumstances—but also he would kill me.
My heart beat hard in my chest and my hands shook as I unwound the leather thongs from Shandry’s wrists. What if Xyla were wrong? What if Shandry ran off? What if she tried to kill me? I didn’t have the first idea of how to defend myself.
Shandry leapt to her feet as soon as I’d freed her. I did, too, letting out a yelp of surprise. She headed for the mouth of the cave, and I raced after her, scarcely noticing the sounds of Grey and Traz behind me.
“Where are you going?” I shouted at her.
She paused just inside and glanced back a
t me with a scowl. “To relieve myself, of course.” And she carried on outside.
I came to a stop as Grey dashed up to my side.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
I gulped. Now I’d have to admit what I’d done. “Xyla told me to untie her,” I said in a quiet voice, not wanting to say the words at all.
“What?” Grey’s shout echoed around the cave. He took my upper arms in a painful grip. “Are you mad? How could you let that viper go free?”
I cringed before his wrath. I hated it when anyone was angry at me, and this was worse than ever. I didn’t even try to get away from him.
“I just did what Xyla told me to do,” I said as tears rose to my eyes.
He gave me a disgusted look that made me want to crawl into a hole in the ground. But before he could start shouting again, Traz walked up holding Shandry’s knife. “At least she doesn’t have this,” he said.
Grey let go of me, almost as if he were throwing me away, and took the knife from Traz.
“I’ll be having that back,” Shandry said, walking back in at that moment.
“No, you won’t,” Grey growled, glaring at her and holding the knife in such a way that she couldn’t try to take it from him.
Xyla let out a snort that froze us all. “Enough!” her voice bellowed in my head. In Grey’s and Shandry’s, too, to judge by the startled expressions on their faces. “Shandry will lead you to Delaron, where you will find aid for me. Grey will stay behind to hunt for me. You will trust one another as I trust you. And you will stop disturbing me with this pointless agitation.”
She hadn’t said anything aloud, but, as if the outburst used up the last of her reserves, a stunned silence fell in the cave.
Traz broke it. “What? What did she say?”
Grey’s only answer was to grab Shandry’s upper arm and guide her back inside to the fire. Traz and I followed, me wiping the tears from my cheeks and hoping Traz didn’t notice.
I hated it that Grey had shouted at me that way. It just reinforced the difference in our ages, that he thought he could treat me like a child. And it made me actually feel like a child, too. In my misery, I almost missed the half-smile Shandry gave Grey as she glanced at his hand on her arm and then at his face.
We all sat around the fire, Grey fiddling casually with Shandry’s knife.
She was the first to speak, and honey practically dripped from her tone. “Shall we start over again? I’m Shandry. You all are?”
Grey pointed the tip of the knife at each of us as he spoke our names.
“And you’re here because?” Shandry asked as if she were a hostess at a tea party.
“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” Grey snapped.
Shandry gave him a sweet smile and lifted her hand in agreement.
Grey’s face relaxed ever so slightly, but the rest of his body was as alert as a hunting cat’s. I just sat quietly, listening to the conversation but not taking part, not wanting to draw Grey’s attention back to me.
“Who exactly are you?” Grey asked.
I expected Shandry to give him a sarcastic answer, but Xyla’s commands seemed to have put her into a different frame of mind. “I’m not anyone, really,” she said, “just a simple peasant living alone in my cottage nearby.”
Grey raised the knife. “Not so simple, I imagine. But carry on.”
“There isn’t much to say. I do live quite alone, whether you wish to believe me or not.”
“Then why did you come here? I can hardly believe you’d just gone out for an evening walk in the woods.”
“No, I was seeking out the source of the disruption in the forest’s life force.”
I looked at her closely. It must have been her. Who else could it be? Why had she sought me out? The voice had said something about craving my power. I huddled deeper into my cloak and thoughts, closing myself off to her.
As if reading my mind, Grey asked, “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
Shandry’s eyes blazed as if she were beginning to lose patience. “Look, the dragon is satisfied with my being here. Surely you don’t think I fancy doing what she asked, leading a bunch of strangers on a journey across the mountains at this time of year, do you? And since I’m the one being inconvenienced, I think I have a right to know some things about who you are and why you’re here, too.”
Before Grey could reply, Traz said, “She’s right, you know. It’s only fair.”
I shook my head, though no one noticed. I didn’t want her to know anything about us. Grey summed up our story, telling Shandry more than I would’ve liked but less than he could have.
When he was done, Shandry, speaking in a soft and quiet voice, said, “You’re not from here. I didn’t understand when Xyla first told me, but I see it now. You’re not from here at all. You’re from there.”
Dragons were not always here. For many long ages, there were none such as these.
Serpents, yes. And lizards, and other creepy-crawly things. Birds aloft on wing. And all other beasts needful to populate the world.
And then came the dragons.
One moment, they were not. Next moment, they were.
None knew whence they came.
None knew how.
None knew why.
None knew the place they would take in our world. Or if they would ever leave us and return to their home.
~from the teachings of Gedden, lore master
Unable to stand it any longer, I shouted, “Here? There? Where?” The sound echoed around the cave, startling Traz and Grey.
Shandry shot me an indecipherable look, one that made my skin crawl. Then her eyes took on a dreamy cast, and after a long pause, she began to speak in a sing-song sort of voice.
“Many, many long years ago, an age ago, the red dragons came to us. Civil war had broken out in their home, and to escape destruction, they came here, to Stychs.” My heart skipped a beat, then started up in double-time. “At first, they were seen as interlopers, a threat to the perfect balance that had long been sought and only recently found. Although they could breathe fire, they chose not to use it against the peoples and creatures of this world. They went to Delaron to dwell there in the desert with the sages until such time as they could return to their own world. And they did not disrupt the perfect balance. In the end, they contributed their own knowledge and wisdom, so that eventually, the sages realized that they were an integral part of the balance. Now they are revered. And so it has been from then until now.” At this point, she shook her head a little, and her voice lost that recitation quality. “But it has always been said that one day, the dragons would return to their own world. When they were summoned back by one of their own.” She turned and looked at Xyla.
I stared first at Shandry, then at Xyla. “How,” I started, and it came out as a squeak. I tried again. “How could Xyla … bring us to another world?”
“That I cannot say. You will have to ask the sages.”
“The who?”
Shandry sighed. “The sages. At Delaron. Where Xyla has told me to take you. The red dragons live there.”
Grey cut in. “All right. It’s clear that Xyla wants the three of you to go. How long is this journey?”
“I’d guess about two weeks this time of year. Maybe longer if the weather doesn’t cooperate. It’s not like there will be caravans going over the pass this early in the season, so we won’t be able to hitch a ride.”
“Two weeks?” I exclaimed. “Isn’t there a faster way?
Shandry shrugged. “As far as I can tell, we can’t exactly fly.”
My heart sank. Despite her sarcasm, she was right. Which meant another journey. On foot. With someone I didn’t trust. I looked over at Xyla who hadn’t moved.
Grey rubbed his ey
es. “Let’s pick this up again tomorrow. Donavah, why don’t you finish your watch.” He might as well have said something about botching my first one; the message was loud and clear in the tone of his voice. “Then the usual rotation.”
Before long, everyone but me was sound asleep. I stared at the fire, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in this long, confusing day.
The peacefulness of sleep settled through the cave, and I had a hard time keeping my eyes open. The flames danced before me, snapping and popping in a syncopated rhythm. They seemed to drain my worries and anxieties, leaving me feeling calm and open. I struggled to stay awake.
The outline of a face appeared in the fire. It started as a vaguely head-shaped outline, but soon the features grew clear. My heart skipped when I recognized Anazian, the traitor mage.
His words filled my mind. “The game board is set. It’s your move.”
As always in the dream, I didn’t reply.
Then his rollicking poured through me. “Perhaps you should give up and go home. Yes, that would be a plan. Home, where all is not as you left it.” The laughter turned brittle. “Go to your mama and papa, where you are truly needed. If it’s not too late.” His evil chortle filled my mind, my ears, the cave, the whole world. And then it faded away. The last thing I heard was, “Your move.”
Home. I must go home to Mama and Papa. I rose to my feet and went outside. There was no discernable path, so I pushed my way through the trees. Branches caught at my clothes and snagged them. Twigs scratched my face. But I kept on.
Which way was Barrowfield? I looked up to try to see the stars, but the trees were too thick overhead. I couldn’t even see the moon. Or perhaps it hadn’t risen yet, or had already set.
Panic set in. What had Anazian done to my family? And why? I moved faster, the need to get home pressing on me like an unbearable weight.
Fear darkened my vision, and it became harder and harder to move forward. Once, I struck my head on an overhanging branch. I stubbed my toes on rocks, biting back yelps of pain so that Anazian wouldn’t be able to find me.
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