Owen was silent for several long moments. Finally with a sigh, he spoke.
“I think Izzy is right,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything in Devil’s melt except enemy soldiers.”
With that, Owen turned and started walking back toward the campsite, leaving Finn alone to muddle through his confused thoughts. Izzy and Owen both thought the dragon amethyst had been moved? They weren’t the kind of people to make big claims like that with no justification. Then again, Noah and Peter were quite smart. If they thought the dragon amethyst was still in Devil’s Melt, they must have their reasons for thinking that, too.
With a sigh of his own, Finn walked back toward the campsite. He didn’t have much choice right now other than to continue forward with the mission as it had been planned out. That was the only choice any of them had, really. They were honor bound to follow the commands of their leaders, and their leaders were all telling them to go to Devil’s Melt. And yet, Finn couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Izzy’s suspicions were correct. Sometimes, you had to question everything you thought you knew before you found the truth. And Finn was beginning to suspect that the wizard Advocates, despite their intelligence, had not, in fact, questioned everything.
Finn’s eyes caught Anya’s gaze as he walked back toward the fire. Her beauty was breathtaking, especially in the warm glow of the fire, and he almost wished he’d met her under different circumstances, where he would have been able to get to know her for a span of time longer than one night.
Such was the life of a dragon, though. He was always on the run, always on the move. There was always work to be done, and, if Izzy’s and Owen’s suspicions were correct, the work required of him now was going to take much longer than any of them had originally thought.
With a sad sigh, Finn took the roasted deer meat that Owen offered to him. He found a seat that gave him a direct line of sight to Anya. If he could only enjoy looking at someone so beautiful for one night, then he was going to make the most of that night, at least.
Chapter Four
Anya tossed and turned in her sleeping bag under the open stars. Sleep eluded her, despite her best efforts to calm her mind. She had decided not to set up her tent tonight, since her four new friends sleeping around her didn’t seem to have a tent with them. She figured her sleeping bag and clothes were warm enough. She would just join them in their open-air slumber. Except there was no slumber for her. They were all actually sleeping, and she was not.
She counted stars for a while, trying to trick her mind into drifting off to sleep. Sleep still did not come, but Anya enjoyed marveling at how brilliantly the stars shone. She’d spent months at a time out here before, but she never got tired of how beautiful the night sky was hundreds of miles from any city lights.
She’d also never seen other hikers this far into the wilderness before. Not recreational hikers at least. Once, she’d come across another group of scientists, and another time she’d met a national park ranger. But that was it. There was something fishy about the group that slept around her.
Perhaps that was why Anya could not sleep. Her four new friends seemed harmless enough, but Anya still felt wary. Their story did not add up. Why would anyone come this far out for a vacation, especially if they were normally city dwellers? Most city dwellers who were going on a big hiking trip for the first time stayed much closer to civilization, just in case. And, although this crew seemed well-prepared for the wilderness, with food, water, and water purification tablets, among other supplies, there were still some things about them that seemed quite strange. For one thing, the two girls were wearing giant gemstone rings. Who wore such expensive, showy jewelry for a hiking trip? Most of the serious hikers Anya knew left even their wedding rings at home. And whatever the rings on these girls’ fingers were, they didn’t seem to be wedding rings. They wore them on their right hands, for one thing. And the two men in the group were obviously not in a relationship with the women, although the one named Owen didn’t do a very good job of hiding how infatuated he seemed to be with Raven.
The one named Finn didn’t seem to have much interest in Izzy, though. Those two definitely were not an item. Anya was surprised to find that this knowledge made her happy. Why did she care what Finn’s relationship status was? Sure, he was quite handsome. Perhaps the most handsome man she had ever seen, in fact. And his eyes did crinkle up in the most adorable way when he laughed. But she was unlikely to ever see him again after they parted ways tomorrow. Besides, she wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t a dangerous man. Actually, she wasn’t convinced that any of these four were actually who they said they were.
Anya glanced over to her left and frowned at the gently rising and falling chests of her new friends. They all still wore those ridiculous uniforms, and she wondered for the hundredth time what the real story behind the uniforms was. The insignia on the uniforms was unlike anything she’d ever seen before. It reminded her of something you might see on a medieval knight’s banner. Were these four really delusional enough to want to wear uniforms and pretend to be on some sort of survival team? That made no sense to her.
“They’re hiding something from me,” Anya whispered into the cool night air. A few feet away from her, Finn turned over. For a moment, Anya held her breath, thinking that perhaps he wasn’t sleeping after all and had heard her whisper. But no, there was no way he could possibly have heard her. It had barely even been audible to her own ears. A few moments later, she heard Finn’s breathing return to the steady rhythm of sleep, and she relaxed.
She felt a bit foolish for worrying about the group of them, when she really thought about it. Surely, if they were dangerous people, they would have harmed her by now. And if by some chance they were just an odd group trying to live out some sort of survival fantasy in the woods, then they might be nerdy—but that didn’t make them bad people. Anya furrowed her brow. Perhaps they were really scientists, and were working on some sort of secret project that they couldn’t talk to others about. That must be it. It made the most sense to her. Although, the giant rings still confused her.
Anya sighed, and closed her eyes again. She needed to sleep, otherwise she wasn’t going to be able to hike very far tomorrow. Not that it mattered. She didn’t have anywhere in particular she needed to be. She was on her own schedule out here, and she had the survival skills necessary to last indefinitely on her own. To tell the truth, she hadn’t been one hundred percent honest with her new friends, either. Oh, she hadn’t exactly lied to them. But they’d seemed to think that she was out here gathering information as a botanist for some big important employer, and she’d let them think that. People often looked at her like she was a little crazy if she told them the truth.
The truth was that she was out here on her own, indulging her own curiosity about plants and enjoying the solitude. She’d worked as a botanist for a big pharmaceutical company before, in their “natural remedies” department. But her heart hadn’t been in it, and after her father, a botanist himself, had passed away, leaving her a huge inheritance, she’d quit. Now, she had enough money to be financially independent. She didn’t need a job, but she did need nature. She needed plants. She needed time away from the hustle and bustle of “normal” life. She came on these trips often. She was writing a guidebook on the flora out here, but it was a fun project, not a moneymaker.
She was happy with her life, overall. She liked living mostly off the grid, and when she missed people too much she bounced back to her small hometown for a bit until she once again craved alone time. Sometimes, though, she wondered if she could really keep up this life forever. She was young, and should have had a lot of friends and perhaps a family of her own. At least that’s what society told her she should be doing. But instead she traipsed through the woods alone. Would she regret this one day? Would she wish she hadn’t turned herself into a nomadic hermit, and had actually settled down?
With another sigh, Anya tried to push these worries out of her head. No wonder she couldn’t sleep.
Too many damn questions and worries running through her mind. She decided to try to distract herself by running through a mental catalog of all the plant specimens she’d collected today. This plan seemed to work, because within a few minutes, Anya had drifted off to sleep as well, finally at peace. She would not, perhaps, have felt so peaceful if she had been able to see that Finn turned toward her once again when he heard her breathing soften into a dreamy rhythm. He opened his eyes, which glowed slightly in the darkness like the eyes of an animal as he watched her. In her innocence, Anya had thought that all four of her new friends were sleeping. She didn’t realize that one of them would always be on guard, watching for any unusual movement in the night sky.
She slept soundly for about fifteen minutes before she was awoken with a start by a giant roar. And, in fact, even when she awoke, she thought she must still be asleep, and having some sort of strange dream.
Finn and Owen were tossing their large backpacks to Izzy and Raven, shouting something about Saul’s soldiers that didn’t really make sense to Anya. Light flashed from the giant rings on the women’s fingers. Izzy and Raven shrugged into the backpacks and then grabbed what looked like broomsticks from behind a large tree. Anya giggled in her dreamlike state, thinking how silly it was to have broomsticks out in the middle of the woods. Everything was so bizarre that she was sure it was all a figment of her imagination. She watched the supposed dream with amusement, not realizing that she was conscious enough to actually have the thought that her subconscious had managed to come up with some strange things.
In the next instant, she realized that this was definitely a scary dream, a nightmare of sorts. Izzy and Raven screamed out some words that sounded suspiciously like Latin to Anya, but they weren’t words she understood. The only Latin words Anya knew were the scientific names of plants. Izzy and Raven swung their legs over the handles of the broomsticks, the same way witches did in all the Halloween stories that Anya had ever read. Then, to Anya’s astonishment, the broomsticks rose up off the ground. The two woman were flying, hovering several feet off the ground and moving in quick circles. Anya could see their eyes by the light of the moon, full of fear. It did not occur to Anya to be afraid. She was watching this with interest, and a bit of annoyance. It was only a dream, but still, she did not appreciate her mind being filled with frightening images.
Anya glanced back at Finn and Owen, and her eyes widened in shock. She saw that they were stripping their clothes off until they were buck naked. Even though it was only a dream, Anya looked away, embarrassed. She turned her gaze back toward the flying women, but moments later the men were standing next to the women, shouting words Anya couldn’t quite make out to them as they stuffed their clothes into the backpacks on the women’s backs. Anya slowly stood, and began to walk toward the group. She wanted to hear what they were shouting about. As she walked, she heard a sudden, loud roar. Startled, she looked to her left, to where the noise had come from. Her eyes widened again as she saw several large lions charging toward them over and over. But each time the lions charged, they seemed to run into some sort of invisible barrier. Behind the lions, there were other beasts. Tigers, bears, and leopards charged as well. And behind them, there was a large group of people, all floating on broomsticks in much the same manner that Izzy and Raven were floating. From their hands, laser-like beams of light shot out. But the lasers seemed to be stopped by some sort of invisible wall as well. Anya strained her eyes to see whether these people were wearing giant rings like Izzy and Raven. She couldn’t see from here, but the light shooting from Izzy’s and Raven’s hands had looked similar to the light the other people were shooting. They must all have some sort of rings that shot light.
Anya chuckled again at the absurdity of her dream, and then turned to look back at her four friends. She walked toward them, and could hear now what they were shouting.
“How the hell did they find us?” Owen asked as he finished stuffing his clothes into Raven’s backpack, and then pulled the zipper shut.
“Probably has something to do with the fact that we had no invisibility shield up when we first arrived,” Finn said, his voice sounding bitter.
“Now’s not the time for arguments, guys,” Izzy warned. “They’re going to break through our protective shield any second. We have to get out of here.”
“What about Anya?” Finn asked as he finished stuffing his clothes into Izzy’s backpack.
Anya saw the four of them all turn to look at her. Even though she was fully clothed, she suddenly had an odd sensation like she was the one naked. She felt exposed as they all stared at her.
“We have to take her with us,” Izzy finally said.
“But—” Owen began.
“No, Izzy’s right,” Finn said. “The enemy is going to think she’s part of our group. If we leave her here, they’ll kill her.”
Anya saw Owen look over at Raven, who gave a small, sad nod.
“Alright,” Owen said in an unhappy voice. “She comes with us. This mission is off to a great start, isn’t it?”
No one answered his sarcastic remark. They seemed to be pressed for time, and kept looking nervously toward where the beasts and other people on flying broomsticks were still trying to break through the invisible barrier.
“I’ll take her,” Finn said. “Let me fly in front, and you guys guard my rear. Izzy and Raven, as soon as we’re up, do your best to throw an invisibility spell over us. I know it won’t be perfect when we’re moving so fast, but maybe in the dark it’ll be enough to allow us to lose them.”
“Roger that,” Raven said. “You guys ready to leave the protection of the shield? It’s not gonna hold much longer, anyway. They’ve got too many wizards throwing counterspells at it.”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Owen said. “Let’s get this over with.”
Anya watched them curiously, trying to understand what was happening, but none of it made sense. She supposed that was the thing about dreams. They never quite made sense. Although, usually, you didn’t realize a dream didn’t make sense while you were in it. You had to wait until you woke up for that.
Anya suddenly had the horrifying thought that she wasn’t dreaming. She shook the thought away just as quickly as it came. There was no way this was real. People don’t just fly around on broomsticks, she thought. And there are no lions or tigers in the forests of Idaho. Still, she decided to try to pinch herself just to be sure. But just as she reached for the skin on her arm, she was thrown backwards. She hit the ground hard, but sprang back up quickly. She had reflexively put her fists up in front of her, ready to fight whatever enemy had just knocked her over. But what she saw when she stood up caused the blood in her body to run cold.
There in front of her, covered in some sort of strange, glowing energy, were Owen and Finn. Except they weren’t exactly Owen and Finn anymore. They were changing right before her eyes, their human forms giving way to some sort of animal shape with a dark, scaled hide. Their hands and feet became sharp, clawed reptilian feet, and wings and tails sprouted from their ever-growing forms. Anya took a step backward in fear and awe. This was definitely a dream if people were turning into animals. But what kind of animal, exactly, were they?
She didn’t have to wait long to see. As their transformations completed, their heads became fearsome dragon heads, complete with teeth so large that each one was the size of Anya’s arm. She took another step backward, trying to understand how there were suddenly two dragons in front of her where Owen and Finn had just been. The dragon that had been Owen a moment ago suddenly pointed his head up and shot a long stream of fire into the sky. This seemed to be some sort of signal, because Izzy and Raven nodded and began rising higher into the air on their broomsticks.
“Alright, Finn,” Raven yelled. “We’re ready. Grab Anya and fly like the devil. We’ll be right behind you.”
“Wait, no,” Anya started to say. Even in a dream, she wasn’t sure how she felt about being carried around by a giant dragon. But Finn—er, the
dragon that had been Finn until a few moments ago—didn’t stop to see how she felt about it. He started flapping his wings, rising almost instantly into the sky. As he rose, he reached out his giant, clawed feet, stretching them toward Anya. She let out a scream as she realized that he was going to grab her with those claws, but no one paid any attention to her protests.
Her eyes squeezed shut in horror as the impossibly large claws closed around her torso, but, to her surprise, she felt no pain. She opened her eyes again and saw that the dragon had somehow managed to pick her up without puncturing her. She felt a momentary rush of relief, but that relief did not last long. She realized that she was rising higher and higher into the air, and the dragon was beginning to pick up speed as he feverishly flapped his huge wings. She wanted to scream again, but the sound stuck in her throat. She was too overcome by terror.
She looked behind her, and saw the other dragon following. Behind him were Izzy and Raven, rising on their broomsticks and flying backward so that their faces were turned toward the mess of animals and broomstick people below. They held their right hands high as if ready to attack, but they had no weapons that Anya could see. The only thing they had was those ridiculously huge gemstone rings they wore. The rings, though, seemed to be some sort of weapon. Anya supposed you could knock someone out with one of those things if you hit them square in the face with it. She almost would have laughed at the thought, if she hadn’t felt so frightened at the moment.
Suddenly, she heard a rushing noise as though she were passing through a jet of water. The rushing noise only lasted a few moments, and then, suddenly, everything else sounded louder. The roars of the animals below became unbearably loud, and the shouts of the people on broomsticks seemed to have been amplified several times. Anya couldn’t make out everything they were shouting, but it sounded like they were yelling, “They left the shield!” over and over again.
Destiny and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 5) Page 3
