Determination and the Dragon (Redwood Dragons Book 4)

by Sloane Meyers

  Harlow had no doubt that he did. She knew enough of dark magic to know that she did not want to experience the worst of what this man had to offer. She had no illusions that telling them where Myles was would be enough to completely save her from their spells. But giving them some information might buy her time. If they would just leave her alone for a little while, she might be able to figure out some way of freeing herself from their hold. And perhaps, given enough time, Myles might figure out where she was and come rescue her. Harlow took a deep breath, and did her best to put on a defeated expression. Let the idiots think they had beaten her down. They would see her true spirit soon enough.

  “Well?” the leader asked, his voice filling with excitement. Harlow knew that her sad, defeated face was having the desired effect. The man thought she had finally given up.

  “He went to town for supplies,” Harlow lied, allowing her voice to crack as though she was trying to keep from crying.

  The man smiled then, looking triumphant as he turned to one of his minions. “Radio our guys on base,” he said. “Tell them to send a group into Devil’s Melt Proper to snag the other miserable wizard wretch. Once we’ve got them both, we’ll let Saul know that we’ve taken a few captives. He might be interested in interrogating them.”

  Harlow shuddered at the thought of being interrogated by a master of dark magic, and she tried to push away the panic that was rising again. She had time. It would take a while for the group sent to Devil’s Melt Proper to realize that Myles wasn’t there. In the meantime, she might be able to figure out a way to escape. Or perhaps Myles would figure out where she was.

  She was in great danger, she knew, but panicking would not help anything. She needed to remain calm and think rationally about what to do.

  The leader barked a couple of orders at his men, and the next thing Harlow knew, she was being hoisted up on one of the men’s shoulders, her immobile body flopping helplessly as he carried her to a snowmobile that had a trailer of sorts attached to the back. He threw her unceremoniously onto the trailer, causing her to wince as her body hit the stiff hardness of the trailer’s floor. Then, the other men threw in the duffel bags and backpack that had been in the cave. They were taking everything that had been in the cave, and Harlow felt a wave of frustration pass over her as she realized that they were going to see all of her notes from the last several months. They would see all the maps that she and Myles had marked up, and they would find the transcripts of their radio and phone conversations that she had printed out. They would know how much she knew, and once they did, they would certainly be even more watchful of her. They were not going to make it easy for her to escape, that much was certain. At least, though, Myles would know the minute he got back that she’d been kidnapped. If they’d left the bags, he might have thought she’d gone for a walk or something. But with the cave cleared out, he would have no doubt that something had gone amiss, and Harlow was certain he would come searching for her right away. She just hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

  The clouds had darkened considerably, and snow had started falling once again. It started as a few small flakes, but within minutes those few flakes had turned into a thick, swirling whiteness. Harlow felt her heart tightening with despair. The snow would quickly cover any tracks the snowmobiles left, leaving no trail for Myles to follow. She hoped that, at least, the weather might make him come back to the cave sooner than he had originally intended.

  Harlow’s captors threw several thick blankets over her, ensuring that she was completely hidden in the back of the trailer. No one who saw the snowmobile zooming along would think that there was a person lying paralyzed in the back of the trailer. Even Myles would not think much of it if he saw her from above as he flew back to the cave. He would just think that he’d spotted the enemy carrying supplies around. By the time he got back to the cave and realized that Harlow had been kidnapped, Harlow was sure it would be too late for him to attack this group out in the snowy wilderness. By then, her captors would no doubt have reached the relative safety of their base camp, wherever that was.

  The snowmobiles roared to life, and then, a few moments later, Harlow felt the trailer start to move as the small group began their trek across the cold, snowy landscape. She closed her eyes and did her best to rest. She refused to sleep, and risk the possibility that the spell hiding her magic ring would break as she slept. She needed that ring now more than ever. But she did try to at least relax a bit. She would need as much energy as she could once she arrived at the enemy’s base camp.

  She had no doubt that there would be plenty more dark magic awaiting her there.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Myles swung his giant dragon head back and forth, straining to see through the rapidly thickening snow. He hadn’t had much luck on his reconnaissance mission thus far, and with the weather worsening as it was, he knew he should just head back to the cave and try again another day.

  A few strings of choice curse words streamed through his head as he finally turned to fly back to the hideout. He had left this morning full of high hopes that he would quickly find Saul’s men, and then fly back to Harlow with the triumphant news so that they could begin planning their break-in. But after a few hours of flying, he was beginning to realize that he had underestimated how difficult it would be to spy on Saul’s men.

  For one thing, he was quite sure by now that they must be using some sort of invisibility spell on their hideout. He’d hoped that this wouldn’t be the case. After all, invisibility spells were extremely difficult to maintain, especially for an area as large as an entire base camp. But all of the natural hideouts Myles had found and checked had been empty. Saul’s men must have decided that it was worth it to devote a good deal of their wizard manpower to maintaining an invisibility spell, and hiding out in the open. They were somewhere close by, Myles was sure of it. Snowmobile tracks crisscrossed the landscape, although try as he might Myles wasn’t able to follow any of them to one particular spot. He could not find anywhere that he could say with certainty held an invisible hideout.

  Dejectedly, he flapped his wings against the growing wind and snow. He would have to try again another day. Perhaps Harlow would have some insights on how to find a hideout that was under an invisibility spell. Heck, she might even know some spells that would reveal a hidden hideout. Perhaps he should just bring her along next time. He hated to risk being seen, but it didn’t do any good to fly around aimlessly, hopelessly searching.

  The snow was so thick now that Myles nearly passed right over the cave hideout without seeing it. A small dark spot of rock caught his eye at the last second, and he switched directions abruptly to begin circling downward. Maintaining his direction was difficult. The wind howled and pushed insistently against his wings, but he managed to stay somewhat in control until he landed with a rough thud several yards away from the cave they had chosen as a hideout.

  It was dark in the cave, which surprised him. He would have thought Harlow would have a lantern going so that she could study the maps some more. Maybe she was sleeping, though. Myles supposed that a day stuck in a dark cave by yourself would probably get pretty boring after a while. He might have tried to sleep some of the hours away himself if he’d been in a similar situation.

  Myles almost hated to shift back into human form right now, because he worried that the noise and energy of shifting would wake up Harlow. But he didn’t want to sit out here in the snow any longer, either. He was plenty warm enough in dragon form, but the swirling snow beat at his eyes in a rather annoying way. Besides, Harlow would probably be happy to see that he was back. He knew she had been quite worried about him, even though she’d done her best to hide her anxiety.

  With a low roar, Myles began to shift back to human form. His body began to shrink back to human size, and his thick dragon hide slowly morphed back to human skin. His arms and legs lost their dragon shape, and the claws on his hands and feet disappeared. His tail and wings disappeared, and his head lost its horns as it ret
urned to its human shape. Almost instantly, Myles began to shiver. The snow where he was standing came up to his waist, completely enveloping his lower half in its frosty temperatures. The top half of his body wasn’t faring much better. The snow beat against it so thickly that he might as well have been standing up to his forehead in snow. Muttering more curses, he began to make his way through the thick snow banks and toward the cave.

  By the time he made it into the dark cave, his teeth were chattering. Unfortunately, Harlow didn’t seem to have any kind of heat spell going in here, either, because the inside of the cave wasn’t all that much warmer than the outside. He looked around in the darkness, not seeing anything much and trying to figure out where the duffel bags might be so that he could at least get some clothes on. Finally, he lost patience and didn’t care if he woke Harlow up.

  “Harlow,” he yelled. “Harlow, can you get up and help me? I need my clothes, and I wouldn’t mind a heat spell and some light. My ass is turning into a block of ice.”

  There was no answer except the howling of the wind outside.

  “Harlow?” Myles yelled again. His eyes were starting to adjust to the dim light of the cave, and his frustration was starting to turn to panic.

  “Harlow!” he yelled. There was still no answer, and now, he could clearly see that the cave was empty. He turned in wild circles kicking around at the floor as though he might somehow just not be seeing the bags. He completely forgot about being cold as he tried to make sense of the situation. Was it possible he was in the wrong cave? No, this one was the exact shape and size of the hideout he had left earlier today. And it was completely free of snow on the floor. New snow was beginning to accumulate near the entrance of the cave, but the rest of the space was bare and dry. This was the cave from which he and Harlow had cleared the snow.

  Only Harlow wasn’t here. And neither were their bags. Myles heart filled with terror as he began to comprehend the awful truth.

  “They found her,” he said aloud. “They found her and took her, along with our bags.”

  There was no other reasonable explanation. Harlow would not have just left, leaving him no clues to her whereabouts. If she had to leave in a hurry for some reason, she would have left him some sort of sign. And she probably would have been kind enough to leave him some clothes, too. Myles looked down at his hands, which were ice cold by now. His human form, although strong and full of internal warmth, was just not able to combat temperatures this severe without at least some clothes to protect him.

  Myles gave a big grunt of frustration, and then headed back outside, where he quickly shifted back into dragon form. Just moments after the transformation was complete, he felt better. His body, now protected by dragon hide, felt warm again. He blinked his dragon eyes a few times, looking around as he tried to spot any signs of struggle. He breathed in deeply, trying to catch the scent of any strange intruders. But he could not see or smell anything. The snowstorm had wiped away all evidence that any living being had been here. All he could see and smell was snow and rock. He whirled around in several large circles, desperately searching for clues. How had they found her? How had they taken her away? Where had they gone?

  There were no clues, no answers to his questions. Myles let out a roar, and breathed a long, angry stream of fire from his mouth. But venting his frustration did not help him feel better. He would not feel better until he found Harlow, and got her away from those despicable excuses for soldiers that made up Saul’s army.

  Myles could sense the panic rising in his chest. Saul’s men practiced dark magic, and he knew that they were the kind of evil people who would take great pleasure in using dark, evil spells on Harlow. The first thing they would have done, too, would be to strip her of her magic ring. She was out there right now, in an invisible hideout and completely helpless against some of the worst evil that humanity had to offer. How could he have been so stupid, to leave her here alone? His primary objective on this mission had been to keep her safe, and he’d failed at that. He’d gotten so caught up in the excitement of the search for Saul’s men, that he’d let down his guard and let Saul’s men come right to their hideout to kidnap Harlow.

  Myles let out another roar and began to flap his dragon wings, lifting himself up into the air again. He had to find her. He had no idea how he was going to figure out where Saul’s army was hiding under an invisibility spell, especially in the middle of this damnable snowstorm. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to break into that hideout once he found it. There were sure to be plenty of evil wizards and shifters, guarding both the base camp and Harlow herself.

  But he had to find a way. He must launch a rescue effort, and he must not fail.

  The love of his life was depending on him.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harlow shivered in the darkness. She was still under the blanket on the snowmobile’s trailer, although the snowmobile hadn’t moved in nearly half an hour. For a while, she’d heard voices around her as the men had discussed where they should keep her on the base, and whether they should tell Saul now that they had her, or wait until the other group got back from town with a second prisoner.

  Harlow had wanted to laugh out loud. They sounded so certain that they were going to capture Myles. They were going to be awfully disappointed, since Myles was nowhere near Devil’s Melt Proper. Harlow hoped that they searched the town for a long, long time, though. The more time they wasted, the more time Myles had to come rescue her before they got really angry at her for lying to them.

  There were no more voices around her now. Everyone seemed to have walked off, and Harlow began to wonder if they had somehow forgotten about her. Her shivering was growing steadily stronger. The blanket didn’t offer much warmth, and the temperature outside seemed to be dropping. If someone didn’t come get her soon, she very possibly might die of frostbite and hypothermia.

  Just when Harlow was ready to give herself up as lost, she heard voices coming back toward the trailer. A few moments later, the blanket was thrown back suddenly, and Harlow winced at the sudden brightness. The sky was relatively dark, thanks to the late hour and thickening storm. But even the snowy grayness was bright compared to the blackness of the thick blanket.

  She felt rough hands pulling her up. Her body was still immobile under the binding spell, but she could feel aches in her stiff muscles. It seemed doubly cruel to have aches in muscles that you couldn’t even move. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she managed to focus her gaze on the men surrounding her. There were some who must be shifters. They were tall and muscular, as shifters usually were, and they did not have magic rings on their fingers. Others in the group were not quite as tall or muscular as the shifters, but they did boast brilliant magic rings on their fingers. Evil wizards, Harlow thought. Saul’s minions, who were no doubt eager to test out their dark magic skills on some poor victim like herself.

  No one said a word to her as they hauled her like a large sack of potatoes toward a large tent. Harlow looked up at the sky and saw that it looked slightly blurry. Either her vision was playing tricks on her due to the long hours spent in darkness under the blanket, or there was a poorly done invisibility shield over this base camp. Harlow was willing to bet it was the latter, and that realization filled her with despair. Myles would have difficulty finding any sort of base camp in this weather, let alone a base camp shrouded in an invisibility spell.

  For the hundredth time that day, Harlow reminded herself not to panic, but heeding her self-admonitions was getting more and more difficult as the hours passed. She was beginning to feel like a fool for ever thinking that she was capable of coming on a mission like this by herself. Perhaps Alfonso had been right, after all. Perhaps this should have been left to the professional spies. It didn’t matter now, though. What’s done was done. She had chosen to take this mission, and she had gotten herself into this predicament. It was up to her to get herself out of it.

  The men entered the large tent, and Harlow instantly felt warmth washing ove
r her body. She was grateful for that, at least. The men walked briskly through the tent, which appeared to have been divided into several dozen rooms. They finally stopped in front of one of the open door flaps to a room and ducked inside. Harlow strained to look around, and saw that they were in some sort of small sleeping quarters. The small room had a bed just large enough to sleep one adult, and a small wooden trunk. That was it for furnishings. The man who had been holding Harlow dropped her roughly onto the bed, then to her utmost surprise, pointed his magic ring at her and said, “Obstupefio terminantur.”

  The invisible energy that had bound Harlow’s body dissipated immediately, and she found herself able to move once more. She sat up in the bed and rubbed at her stiff arms, looking warily over at the men who had just brought her into the room.

  “Lucky you, the boss wants to talk to you,” the man who had just dropped her said. “Clean yourself up. You’ll find clothes and a hairbrush in that little trunk, and one of our wizards should be here any moment now with a basin of water for you to wash off your face with. Make yourself look presentable. It would serve you well to impress the boss, trust me. And don’t try any funny business. My men are guarding the room on all sides. If you try to escape, we’ll make you curse the day you were born.”

  With that, the men disappeared from the room. A few seconds later, the door flap opened and a short, plump wizard walked in carrying a basin that sat attached to the top of a tall pedestal. The woman nodded courteously to Harlow, then set the basin pedestal down in the middle of the room. She pointed her magic ring at it and said “Magicae aqua.”

  Instantly, the basin filled with water. The woman bowed slightly, then turned and left the little tent room without another word. Harlow sat motionless for a full minute after the woman had gone, but then roused herself and stood. She had no idea who this “boss” was or why the guards thought it was lucky that he wanted to talk to her, but she couldn’t imagine that anything good would come of this. She figured, though, that if she’d been instructed to wash and dress, she might as well do so. She needed to pick her battles here, and there was no sense in angering anyone over something as minor as getting dressed.