The men with the cart appeared, abandoning it to jog slipping in the mud for the bridge. Once they were across, Kyric stopped them.
‘Are there anymore Ilven still in the camp?’ he said-signed.
Lioffin shook his head. ‘No. We were the last.’
“The odds are three to ten now,” Lerica said. “We should attack — “ As Aiyan stepped past them to speak with her, Lioffin’s arm erupted in blood, a report echoing dully in the rain-soaked jungle.
“Get down!” Aiyan said, pulling Kyric to the ground.
Lerica waved at the Ilven. ‘Everyone down.’ She turned to Aiyan. “How in the hell did they get a musket to fire in this rainstorm?”
“That was Pacey, I’m sure,” said Aiyan as he examined Lioffin’s wound. “With a finely-made wheel-lock like his, the seams are closely fitted. Push in the dogs, apply a little wax, and it will be watertight as long as no moisture gets down the barrel. But you need a dry place to reload and it takes a long time.”
Kyric tore a strip from his shirt to use as a bandage. “He may have fired from inside his hut,” he said. “He has a line of sight from the door.”
Aiyan shrugged. “He nicked this fellow a good one, but the ball passed right through. He’ll be alright for now.”
“Did you . . . did you kill Thurlun?” Kyric asked.
He could barely hear Aiyan’s answer. “I don’t know. I certainly broke a couple of his ribs. I may have punctured his lung.”
Darkness closed around them. In the last failing light a group of four, most likely Breed and the hunters, marched to the tables and returned with the empty cart, turning it on its side at the head of the bridge, blocking the way. They hunkered down behind it.
“That’s a bit of luck,” said Aiyan. “They mean to trap us on this island, but all they’ve done is prevent themselves from making a surprise attack. They’ll have to haul that cart aside before they can come across.”
The rain began to ease up. It continued steadily, but not nearly so hard. Lerica grabbed Kyric by the sleeve. “What’s happening with the rain?” she said. “If it stops they will come across with their pistols and that will be all for us.”
“Calm down,” Aiyan said, “even if it quits completely I doubt they’ll come in the dark. If it doesn’t pick up again we’ll have to take the fight to them before morning — something I was hoping to avoid.”
“The storm dragon has vented his anger,” Kyric whispered to himself.
“What did you say?”
“This rain is from my dreams, like the fire on the ship.”
Aiyan was silent for a moment. “I see.”
“I did it with Rolirra’s help. She was a master dreamer.”
“I see,” said Aiyan. He was quite again for another minute. “Is there a way for you to bring back the storm?”
“You’re still thinking of the embankment at the lake of the ruins,” Kyric said. He shook his head, though it was too dark for anyone to see it. “I’m not sure. Rolirra has always drawn me into the dreamlands. I don’t know if I can get there without her.”
He heard Aiyan breath out heavily. “You two go get some rest. There’s no point in all of us waiting here. I’ll wake you if anything changes.”
Lerica had plucked a leaf from a shrub and was using it to funnel rainwater into her mouth. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here for a while. Wouldn’t be able to sleep on a bet right now.”
Kyric made his way to the large group of trees. In a flash of lightning he saw that the Ilven had laid Rolirra’s body in the only dry place, underneath the cooking table.
He knelt and touched her on the hand. It was cold. She was really dead.
He pleaded silently as he looked for a place to lie down. Please be there. Please be there.
He settled into a spot where the rain didn’t fall into his face. He was wide awake. How was he going to fall asleep after what had happed today?
Please be there.
He thought of the focus required for the weird arts. The non-being.
Please.
Emptiness.
A change in the rhythm of the rain woke him. Rolirra stood at the opening of the cavern, the cloak of wolf’s moss wrapped tightly around her. She had been looking out over the rainlands, watching the overcast grow brighter with the morning. She turned to him when he sat up.
“What is it?” she said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“It’s nothing,” he said, “just another bad dream.”
“Something happened to me on the other side, didn’t it?” Her eyes turned dark.
“I don’t remember.”
It was a lie. He remembered the dream.
“I awoke in the night,” she said, “and I was afraid. I had been torn from my dream, and sleep would not return.”
“That’s just as well. It was more of a nightmare.”
He went to stand next to her and gazed up at the ceiling of clouds. “I no longer hear the thunder of the dragon,” he said. “The storm has passed. The rain grows weak.”
She slipped the glass flute from her pouch. It was still intact. “We can compel the dragon to fly again.”
Kyric thought for a moment. They didn’t need rain so much as something more decisive.
“Can you compel it to do anything?”
“Anything that its nature allows, if it does not want to hear the fairweather song.”
“Will the flute call it to us? I have an idea.”
She raised the flute and played a long, sweet note. The voices of bluebirds echoed in the cavern, and outside, shafts of sunlight burst through the clouds.
High above them, lightning crashed on the mountain with a deafening boom, rolling across the alpine forest, and they backed away. The wind rose quickly, a rushing sound descending upon them, and then the storm dragon appeared at the mouth of the cave, its great wings spread, flapping to break its momentum as it lighted at the edge of the opening. It looked down on them.
“Enough,” commanded the dragon, speaking in the Essian Tongue. “Play no more.”
Kyric stepped in front of Rolirra, his hand on his sword. “Do us a service, and we will return the flute to you.” He found that when he talked to the dragon, he too spoke the Essian Tongue, and did so quite fluently.
The dragon snorted. “Blackmail. How knightly of you.”
Kyric shook his head. “Not so. You owe us a debt. It was us who freed you from the bondage of the cloud ogre.”
The dragon raised a talon. It crackled with electricity. Kyric felt an unpleasant tickle as something unseen washed over him.
“Never let it be said that the sky dragons are without honor. What is this service?”
Kyric bowed. “We wish for you to carry us aloft to the islands in the sky.”
The dragon recoiled, thunder growling in its belly. “The Lord of Storms does not act as a porter for lowly travelers. If all you seek is transportation, summon another. Find a new way.”
“We are not mere travelers,” Rolirra said firmly. “We are master dreamers.” She raised the flute. “I can prove the truth of that if you wish.”
“We are at noble purposes,” Kyric said. “And once we are there, I will have need of your strength — a task that only you can perform, Lord Dragon.” He dropped to one knee and bowed again. “We submit ourselves to your wisdom and your honor.”
The dragon roared, thunder shaking the walls of the cavern. Its sublime yellow eyes seemed to pierce their hearts. It extended a talon.
“Mount!” said the Lord of Storms.
They climbed its foreleg, the smooth-looking scales in fact coarse and rough under their feet. They straddled its great neck where it met the shoulder. Without warning, the dragon swung about and leapt from the cave, spreading its wings and diving to gain momentum. The rain stung their faces. Each scale of the dragon’s armor had a spike growing from it as a spur, and Kyric and Rolirra clung desperately to these.
The storm dragon raised its head and swung into
a climbing arc, its wings pumping furiously. They passed through the layer of clouds, raising thunderheads as they did, lightning bolts shooting from the dragon’s claws. Overhead, the sky islands looked small, drifting like flotsam on an invisible current.
They rose above the summit of the mountain, and the dragon climbed towards the biggest island. Even the clouds lay far below them. The horizon began to curve, and beyond it they could see blue and green planets against a sky that had turned black.
A sudden jolt nearly threw them. The dragon shuddered, fighting the currents in the sky as it soared above the islands. The one below them was huge, covered in forest and meadow. The forest ran with blue light, and a golden glow shone beneath the grass. A few deer stood drinking at a small pond, their antlers like polished silver. The dragon spiraled down, landing gently at the leading edge of the island.
“My thanks,” Kyric said to the dragon when they had jumped down to stand before it. Their breath came out frosty, and their cloaks snapped in the wind.
The dragon folded its wings. “Name this task you would have of me, dreamer.”
Kyric took inventory of the nearby islands. “This one is too big, I fear.” He pointed to a massive raft of granite bobbing in the stream ahead of them. “That one will do, I think.”
Rolirra eyed him suspiciously. “What are you going to do?”
He stood at the very edge, watching the dreamlands roll past them far below. They were passing over a sea of boiling mud. Then he saw it on the horizon.
“Lord Dragon,” he said, “when I am ready, I would have you push yon rocky isle from the current, so that it falls to Aerth.”
The dragon opened its mouth in an imitation of a smile, wisps of fog roiling out from between its teeth. It leaped into the air and began to circle above them.
Rolirra took his wrist and turned him toward her. “I don’t understand.”
“There,” he said, looking down. They approached a land of trees and streams. He pointed at a perfectly square lake with a square island in the middle, the ancient city. “I’m going to cause a ripple.”
She had questions she couldn’t form. She tried to speak but no words would come out.
“I don’t know how to say it either,” he said. “It has to do with why I am in this world. This is my reason to be.” He knelt in front of her and took her hand. “I must find the way for the stone as it falls. I must ride the island down.”
“You will be killed.” She found that she could whisper.
He nodded gently, but it was not all sadness. “Yes. That is why you have to stay here. You must live on this side of the dream. I couldn’t go on without knowing that.”
He could see her thinking quickly, searching frantically for an argument that would hold. She turned this way and that, as if she could find it lying near, turning back to him with a pleading look when she saw that it was useless.
“What will I do without you?”
“You will find your way.”
He turned and jumped straight up, spreading his arms and letting the current carry him. He leaned forward, arching his back and it was like flying as he bobbed and floated with the debris trailing the islands. Lowering his head made him go faster and he closed with the monstrous block of granite.
The dragon met him there. “Are you ready, master dreamer?”
“This service satisfies all honor,” Kyric said. “Rolirra will return the fairweather flute to you when you have completed this task. Yet I ask for a boon. I ask you to favor me when this is done and take her home. There is nothing for her here. She will become lost here. I ask this humbly.”
The storm dragon didn’t answer. It leapt backward, performing an aerial loop. Then another, then another, the loops getting tighter and tighter before it broke away into a complex pattern of turns and rolls. It was shaping the current. Kyric could see it reforming, outlined in the dust and snow flurries.
With a hard bank the dragon deflected the newly-formed cross-current into the granite island. At first there was only a rush of wind. Then slowly it tilted and began to ease toward the fringe of the current. As it slipped from the stream and began its downward plunge, Kyric looked back. The dragon soared higher, throwing lightning into the black sky. He thought he heard an echo of laughter inside the rolling thunder.
Kyric’s stomach went hollow as the great stone nosed down, dropping faster and faster. He crouched near the leading point where he could see the lake of the ancient city, holding tight to cracks in the granite. Screaming downward at a tremendous speed, the front end of the boulder began to glow red hot, bits of molten rock flying away. Kyric’s focus on the lake never wavered, and the falling island followed the track of his vision.
The lake grew larger by the second. His trajectory was perfect — the boulder would strike right where he had aimed, in the water near the eastern embankment. There was no chance it would miss.
He let go and leaned back against the hurtling stone. There was nothing more. Everything was done. It would only be a few moments now.
A shadow blotted out the sun. Something yanked him violently upward, knocking the wind out of him. He hung in the grip of the storm dragon, soaring swiftly over the rainforest at canopy level. Dark clouds rose where they passed. A familiar pulse of electricity ran along his body.
Behind him, red-hot granite exploded as it struck water, sending out a tidal wave that topped the levee, washing away a huge slice of earth. Then it was like a domino trick, the embankment collapsing in sections along its length.
Kyric had a thought, suddenly lucid, the memory of his waking life returning with a jolt. Would it be enough on the other side? It only needed to make the slightest cut there, just enough to let a trickle through. The weight of the water would do the rest.
He gasped for breath as they raced along the treetops. The dragon held him too tightly. Ahead, a curtain of mist draped down from a cloudbank. They flew into it, and for a time they were enveloped in its grey folds. They broke free of the mist, the dragon banking, raising its huge wings to slow them, and they glided toward a tree on the crest of a gentle hill, a hill surrounded by houses and gardens.
“No!” Kyric shouted, “Not here!”
The dragon tossed him into the grass at the foot of the dream tree and flew on without pause. Kyric tumbled to a stop and rolled to his knees.
“Not me!” he yelled after the dragon. “Not me. It was to be her. She will be lost there. She will be lost.”
The dragon disappeared into the clouds with a flicker of lightning. Kyric threw himself down on the grass and closed his eyes against a flood of tears.
He rolled over to see Aiyan’s face in the first grey light of dawn. “It has stopped raining. They’re coming with all their guns.”
CHAPTER 16: Falling Star
“Did you see anything,” Kyric said hoarsely, “anything in the sky?”
“I saw a falling star,” said Lerica. She crouched nearby behind a thick, bushy plant.
“Did it make a sound?”
“I only heard thunder from the storm as it moved away.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe a quarter hour.”
Kyric sat up. “I guess it wasn’t enough.”
Aiyan pulled him behind a tree. “Stay under cover.” He peeked out for a split second. “Breed is leading them. He has Thurlun’s pistols. Pacey and the one-eared musketeer are right behind him along with Snaker.”
He placed one hand on Kyric’s shoulder. “I will ambush them at the bridge. I want the two of you to stay here, stay low, and watch. If I can get them to discharge all of their firearms, there may be an opportunity, but keep a cool head and don’t be foolish.” He aimed the last bit at Lerica.
He turned, crawling quickly to the far end of the island, and lowered himself into the water.
“What are you doing?” Kyric whispered fiercely. “The crocodiles.”
Aiyan’s eyes brightened. “I have communed with the Unknowable Forces, and I have atoned mysel
f with the animal master of the swamps. No creature here may touch me. I am the crocodile.” And he slipped beneath the murky green water.
Kyric could hear voices at the bridge now, and he peered out between leafy branches to see Harlon and Ral pulling away the cart that had blocked the bridge. Pacey and One-ear took position on each flank, and all the others lined up behind Breed. There was no sign of Thurlun.
Breed carried one of Thurlun’s pistols in each fist, held ready to fire. He stepped slowly onto the bridge, stopping and listening, scanning the high grass for anyone lurking there. He took another cautious step, looking everywhere, holding the pistols at arm’s length.
He’s too wary, Kyric thought. He has some knowledge of the weird arts and senses his danger.
Breed took one more step, suddenly pointing one pistol at the water to his right.
Aiyan burst out of the moat on his left, his sword aflame, swinging with both hands. Breed’s lower leg spun away from his body. Aiyan had severed it at the knee, and as Breed fell into the swamp he fired both weapons uselessly into the air. Snaker ran up to the moat, just now cocking his pistol. One-ear took a snap shot at Aiyan, but he had already dived back under the water.
Pacey kept his head. “Reload!” he said to One-ear, standing still with his musket, aiming down the sight, ready for Aiyan to pop up again. The other men backed away from the bridge. Breed didn’t surface.
The Ilven were all on their feet now. Pacey searched for a target among them, uncertain about what was happening.
“Push the cart back in place,” he said. “We have to — “ But the sound of its coming silenced him.
It was louder than Kyric had imagined. Strangely, there was some flooding ahead of the main body, so the river and the swamp began to rise even as they turned to face the roar of the coming wave.
To his credit, Pacey reacted quickly. “The longboat!” he called as he broke into a run, not waiting to see if anyone had heard him. “Get to the longboat!” The others didn’t hesitate. Most of them scrambled for the boat, seeing their fate even as they ran to avoid it. They would not reach the longboat in time.
The Hidden Fire (Book 2) Page 15
