by Maria Grace
They dismounted and approached the cowering wyrms.
“What news have you?” Fitzwilliam crouched near them.
The wyrms reared up on their tails and wove as though trying to make out where the voice came from.
Fitzwilliam slipped the greatcoat off his right shoulder, still keeping the sword hidden beneath the other side. “Is that better?”
The larger wyrm nodded. “Where did you come from?”
“Tell them your news.” Walker poked the nearest wyrm with his wingtip.
“Is Elizabeth all right?” Darcy dropped to his knees, clenching his fists so he did not grab the creature and shake answers from it.
“Both females are well. The blue one sent us to get them food and blankets.”
“Both? There are two?” Darcy asked.
“Is there a man as well?”
“Was.” The smaller wyrm edged back as she answered.
“Did he escape?” The effort to moderate his tone lined Fitzwilliam’s face.
“No one has seen him.” The larger wyrm twitched and hunched into striking position.
“Did the blue one harm him?” Darcy’s whisper seemed to calm the wyrms.
“Not know. Blue one did not say.”
Fitzwilliam flashed his eyebrows at Darcy. He was right. At this point, Wickham was of little import as long as Elizabeth—and her sister—were safe. “Where have you been taking the supplies?”
The wyrms talked over one another until it dissolved into gibberish. Walker squawked for silence.
Darcy produced his tin of beetles and gave each wyrm a treat. They gobbled the beetles without hesitation and descended into ecstatic writhing. As they righted themselves, they cast pleading glances his way.
“I have another for each of you if you will take us there.”
“Come! Come!” They bobbed and wove about in circles as they waited for the men to remount the uneasy horses.
Following the wyrms, Fitzwilliam turned to Darcy with a raised eyebrow. “Whatever those are, Darce, it looks like I need to acquire some myself.”
“Gardiner imports them. I will see you have some. Earl might even like them himself.”
“Pray he does not drool all over himself like those wyrms.”
“Cockatrice are known for their dignity. Do not fear.” Darcy pointed toward Walker with his chin. The cockatrice followed the wyrms like a schoolmaster herding his students.
The wyrms led them north, toward the stream that bordered the two estates, not far from Longbourn’s lair. Even with Longbourn’s promise to not engage Netherfield, being so close to the wyvern’s territory could not be a good thing.
The horses balked as they approached the hillside. Probably a good sign given horses were terrified of lindwurms. They dismounted and tied off the horses.
Fitzwilliam removed a pair of iron lanterns from his saddlebag, lit them, and handed one to Darcy. Neither cast a great deal of light, but in the overwhelming dark underground, they would be enough.
“In there.” The wyrms stopped at a fairly large opening in the hillside, sufficient for a lindwurm. “It goes straight to the blue one.”
“Lead us.” Fitzwilliam stepped inside the entrance.
“No, no, no. The blue one must not know we brought you.” Both wyrms rose up on their tails, weaving around one another.
“Then you shall have no beetles until we find him.” Darcy tapped his pocket.
The wyrms looked at each other, twitching and bobbing and swaying. “We wait here.” The larger one said as they coiled up, entwined, on a sun-warmed rock near the opening.
Darcy made his way inside. A few steps into the tunnel, darkness enfolded them, a cold, dank blanket, heavy on their shoulders. Only the two flickering lanterns could push it back and then only barely.
Fitzwilliam led the way, one hand holding the lantern high, the other on the pommel of his sword. On the tunnel floor, they could just make out the scrapings made by the belly scales of a large wyrm. The size alone strongly suggested it was the one calling itself Netherfield.
The tunnel walls widened and narrowed, the ceiling lowered and lifted, ebbing and flowing like the course of a stream, never too tight for them to pass easily.
Odd. Was that the scent of wood smoke? This far underground?
“Look!” Fitzwilliam whispered and pointed ahead.
The remains of a fire were scattered across the tunnel floor. To the left, a small trunk leaned against the rocky wall. Nearby, a tattered blanket lay in a heap. What did a cold-blooded creature need a blanket for?
Darcy ran to the far wall and threw open the trunk, heart pounding. “Jars of preserves and pickles? Apples, crumbs of bread and cheese?”
“Look at these footprints.” Fitzwilliam crouched near the remains of the fire. “Ladies’ shoes.”
He was right! But where was she? How could she have disappeared? He struggled to breathe. “She is not here.”
Fitzwilliam laid a hand on his shoulder. “I see no signs of a struggle. No bloodshed. Moreover, it is clear she was here. We are close to finding her. Let me see your maps.” They spread them on the dusty ground. Fitzwilliam tapped a spot. “This is the place the wyrms led us. See here? The spot between the hills we just passed through.”
Darcy squinted in the flickering light. “So, then this is the passage we took, and here is where we are now.”
“It seems the passage continues fairly straight through—yes, this is good! Look, the tunnel only splits off once and both of those lead up to entrances. So, there is little chance they could have got lost! Come, we will find them!” Fitzwilliam folded the maps and beckoned him deeper into the darkness.
∞∞∞
“Lizzy, Lizzy!” Lydia grabbed at Elizabeth’s arm. “Pray stop! We cannot go on like this. We are hopelessly lost!”
“We have no choice.” Elizabeth pulled her arm away and trudged on. The cold and the dark were fraying her nerves, too, but they had to be close to an exit. They just had to be.
“We have been walking ever so long now, and we are down to your last torch. We must go back. It should be obvious to even you that there is no way out.”
Just as it should have been obvious to Lydia that with only one torch left, there was no way they could get back to Netherfield’s chamber. Their only hope was to press on.
“Lizzy, I said stop!” Lydia grabbed at her dress, and Elizabeth fell hard, dropping the torch. It bounced several times, hit the floor, sputtered, and went out.
“Light it! Pray light it!” Lydia shrieked.
“I cannot see it any better than you can. How am I to do it?”
“You found wood to light a fire in the dark.” Lydia clutched at Elizabeth’s hand.
“It is not as easy as you suppose. I hardly had time to see where the torch landed.”
“You blame me for this? You were the one who dropped it.”
“Not now, pray hush, and let me think.” Elizabeth felt for the tunnel wall.
“Hush? Hush? Why should I hush? This is not a time for silence.” Lydia stomped. “If anything, it is a time to cry out for help. How can anyone find us if we are silent? Help! Pray, someone help us! We are here!”
Elizabeth rubbed her temples. “Hush! I cannot think with you shouting!”
“Your thinking is what has got us lost in the darkness! It seems up to me to get us out. Help! Find us please! We are here, against the wall in the dark!”
Stupid, stupid girl! Elizabeth pushed stray hair out of her face. With any luck, she would be able to find the torch. Not that it would be easy, but it should be possible. If she could light it, they would have a few more minutes to try to find their way out. Not many, but it would be something. But perhaps, she should wait to even try until Lydia had thoroughly exhausted herself.
“Help! Help!”
Yes, she would definitely wait—and try to think amidst the noise. Was there some way to call to some of the local rock wyrms? If she could find one, a little cheese would buy its help.
Perhaps if she just laid out the food?
She pressed her temples. The darkness made it hard to think, weighing heavier and heavier across her shoulders. The stark reality of their peril danced just behind her. To dwell on that was to surrender to it, though, and she was just not ready to do that. Not yet.
“Lizzy, look!” Lydia shook her shoulder.
Surely, she must be seeing things. Elizabeth rubbed her eyes with her fists, but the yellow-green blob of light, faint but growing, remained.
“Here we are!” Lydia shook her harder. “See, see, I was right! We are saved! Because of me! you see I was right!”
Elizabeth held her breath. That color was cold, unnatural, not the color of fire. It was unlike any color she had ever seen, more like a willow-the-wisp of legend. Every fable declared they existed only to lead travelers astray. She clutched the wall behind her, knees softening into jelly. Since most dragon legends held a measure of truth, this one probably did too, and that could only mean—
“Pray come here! I am sure you are looking for us! Get us out of this awful place!” Lydia stood, sleeves rustling as though she waved her hands.
The light grew larger and brighter, bobbing, maybe as high as Elizabeth’s head. She pressed harder against the wall. The tiny knife in her pocket would offer little protection, and she could not run. Is this how the virgins sacrificed to the dragons of old felt? She pressed her fist to her mouth. Screaming was undignified.
A face appeared.
Lydia screamed and fell against Elizabeth who caught her barely in time to keep her from striking her head against the stone.
∞∞∞
“Look, I see light ahead!” Fitzwilliam pushed through the narrowing tunnel, Darcy on his heels.
Sunlight blinded them, stopping them just a step beyond the small exit. Blessed warmth penetrated the layer of cold that had followed him from the tunnels. Fresh, sweet air filled his lungs—he never had liked the stale smell of stone.
Darcy closed his eyes and listened: a slight breeze, birdsong, soft slithering and chattering—probably the rock wyrms approaching, in search of their promised treat. But no female voices, no rustle of skirts against underbrush, not a single sound he wanted to hear.
She should have been here, waiting for him, assuring him she was well and everything was going to be all right. He reached behind him for support.
“Darce, look!” Fitzwilliam elbowed his knee.
Darcy blinked until his eyes finally adjusted.
Fitzwilliam crouched several yards from him, pointing at marks in the sand. “These tracks—I am sure they are lindwurm.”
Darcy peered over his shoulder. The marks were subtle, subtle enough for any but the most experienced tracker to miss. When, how had Fitzwilliam become so skilled?
“Beetle?” The two rock wyrms hurdled over a large rock and landed at his feet.
“We did not find her.” Fitzwilliam folded his arms over his chest and glared at the now cowering creatures.
“She was there! She was!” The small one cried, hiding in the large one’s shadow.
“We saw signs that she had been there.” Darcy tucked his hand in his coat pocket.
“You see! We did not lie! She was there.”
“Do you know where she is now?” Darcy removed his hand from his pocket.
The wyrms slumped. “Have not seen or heard. The blue one passed but only scolded us to bring more food.”
“You saw the blue one? When? Where?” Fitzwilliam whipped his head back and forth, scanning the woods.
“After you entered the tunnel. The shadows moved from there to there.” The larger rock wyrm pointed with his tail, but the effect was meaningless. “He went this way. He patrols his territory every day. He would have gone there next, then there and there.” The wyrm pointed in many directions, but finally stopped facing east.
Listening to wyrms was almost as irritating as trying to converse with fairy dragons. Perhaps a little more so.
“He always takes the same path?” Fitzwilliam stared at them as he did freshly recruited soldiers.
“He becomes angry if anything interferes with his ways.”
“Good, good, then we know where to go. Come.” Fitzwilliam beckoned.
“Wait.” Darcy crouched and produced beetles for each wyrm. “I have kept my promise to you even though we have not yet found her. If you see any signs of her or find her, you are to let us know immediately, and there will be more beetles.”
After their post-beetle ecstasy, the wyrms readily agreed. Of course, they would. Anything to sate their perpetually-empty bellies.
“Those are right handy little tidbits,” Fitzwilliam muttered as he tromped east.
“No accounting for taste, I assure you; they smell dreadful. But it is difficult to think of anything else quite so efficacious in gaining the wyrms’ cooperation.”
“There, look. The trail—a fresh one—the wyrms spoke of. I hardly dared believe they would be sensible, but it seems they are.”
Dragon thunder shook the trees.
“Dragon’s blood and fangs!” Darcy punched at the air. “I told him not to confront Netherfield.”
“Bloody hell! It is possible Longbourn caught Elizabeth’s scent and is pursuing Netherfield to rescue her. Or …”
Darcy held up an open hand. No need to go there.
“We might be able to use this to our advantage.” Fitzwilliam trotted off into the deep woods, following the dragon thunder.
“What do you mean?” Deadfall crunched beneath them as they ran, dodging stones and fallen branches.
“While the creature is distracted, I may be able to sneak up on it.”
“You cannot harm it until we have Elizabeth back. If only he knows where she is … we must rescue her.” Darcy clenched his fist.
“Trust me, I will do everything I can to recover her. But I also have orders to neutralize the rogue dragon’s threat.”
Darcy bit his tongue. What was there left to say? Nothing would dissuade Fitzwilliam from carrying out his orders—and perhaps nothing should.
Clearly, though, he had never been in love. Some things were important enough to bring even the Blue Order’s demands into question. But that was not an argument he could win now… or perhaps ever.
The dragon thunder increased, booming in a different voice now. Another dragon! No! The two had already met! Once they confronted each other, little save a more dominant dragon, could intervene—and neither he nor Fitzwilliam qualified as such.
“Look, there!” Fitzwilliam pointed through the trees to a place where the forest gave way to a rocky clearing backed by several low hills.
Longbourn loped toward the clearing from the western edge, the ground trembling with each step. The lindwurm rose on his tail, challenging the wyvern’s bellow with his own thunder.
So that was what a lindwurm looked like in the flesh. A dark grey-blue, darker than the rock wyrms, with a wild mane, fully fluffed to increase his size. Fangs bared, they must have been the length of Darcy’s hand, stained and streaked with neglect. Short forearms waved near his head, toes flexed to show his talons to greatest effect.
Longbourn stopped well out of Netherfield’s striking distance, wings fully extended and flapping. He threw back his head and screeched like a hunting cockatrice, his size lending volume and power to his voice that no cockatrice would ever have.
The sound should have driven every other living thing away from their confrontation. At least those living creatures with sense enough to flee fighting dragons. Unlike he and Fitzwilliam, who were compelled to run toward it.
∞∞∞
A face appeared beneath the bobbing yellow-green glow, one unlike any Elizabeth had ever seen. A long, very square muzzle ended in a huge, fanged mouth. Ridges along the nose led to close-set eyes reflecting an orangey glow. Bushy eyebrows swept back and met a hairy fringe along the bottom jaw, becoming a mane—more equine than leonine—full and bushy, extending down a very long neck. The side manes met at t
he back and merged into a pointed spinal ridge that disappeared into the darkness. Very long whiskers dangled from the edges of the nostrils into a very distinct mustache. It might have hopped off one of Lady Catherine’s prized chinoiserie cabinets at Rosings Park. Elizabeth gulped and glanced at the front feet. Four toes!
“You are the emissary?” Elizabeth pulled her shawl up over her head and dropped to a knee before the high-ranking Eastern dragon.
“You are Blue Order?” Her accent was odd, each word slow and deliberate; blue sounded more like “brue” and the “r”s of order all but disappeared, but her meaning was clear enough.
“I am, Emissary.” Elizabeth rose, head still bowed. “We were told you had become lost on your journey. Pray, permit me to introduce myself. I am Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” She curtsied.
“Erizabet?” The dragon cocked her head. The odd glowing ball turned with her.
How peculiar. It seemed to be attached to the top of her head. She carried her own light with her? How astonishingly clever. No wonder she was willing to come all this way via the tunnels!
“I am called Shin-dee-a.” The dragon dipped her head.
“May I address you that way?”
“Of course. Why else would I tell you what I called?” Shin-dee-a chuckled, a deep-bellied, sonorous, but most of all, friendly sound. “What wrong with her?” She pointed a long foreleg toward Lydia.
“I fear it is a very long story, but in short, she was not expecting to see you.”
“Then why she call for help?”
“I promise, I will explain soon, but first, would you assist us in getting to the surface?”
“I get you out. Come.” She poked Lydia. “Up, up, time to go.”
Lydia sat up and started to scream, but Elizabeth clapped her hand over her mouth. “Be still. Lady Shin-dee-a has come to help us.”
“Lady?”
“It is complicated. Come.” Elizabeth grabbed Lydia’s elbow and dragged her to Shin-dee-a’s side. They walked beside her in the odd glow of her … what did one call that? A bobble?
