Nunn floated toward the platform, his eyes daring any of the others to stop him. He had spread his arms wide now, and his fingertips glowed as if they were lit from within. Mary Lou’s gaze was drawn to the new gem in his forehead, which seemed to pulse with light. She wanted to touch that light. She felt almost like she had to, like the dragon ordered her.
The gem moved slightly, as if it had somehow worked itself loose.
Why not, she thought, if it was part of the dragon?
“I’ll kill the rest of you now,” Nunn said as he hovered above her. “Mary Lou and I will have a much better time in private.”
Not with that gem, you won’t. She reached up and plucked it from his forehead.
It came out easily.
Nunn screamed, his hands flying to his forehead. “What have you done to me?”
“Only taken something that wasn’t yours,” Mary Lou replied, surprised her voice could sound this strong.
Nunn groaned. The green fire now lived in his eyes. “You’ll give that back to me.” Green flame burst from his mouth.
Mary Lou felt like she had been punched in the stomach. The platform of sticks rocked beneath her.
“Mine now,” Nunn cried as he grabbed for the gem. “Mine forever!” A black bird swooped between him and his prize.
“Raven owns all shiny things!” the bird announced as he grabbed the dragon’s eye with his claws.
“No!” Nunn screamed, unable to stop his forward momentum. He fell heavily on top of Mary Lou.
The platform of sticks collapsed beneath them.
Fifty-Two
Todd and the others had almost reached them when Mary Lou disappeared.
Raven flew away as Nunn fell toward the smoking pot below. The kettle disappeared a second later. Nunn spun about in the air, whirling around as if his sorcery now controlled him. The wizard made a shrieking noise, so hard and high it sounded like metal scraping metal rather than the sound of some living thing.
Then the wizard, too, was gone.
There was a moment of silence as if no one could believe what had happened before them.
Then the Anno all erupted at once, not with a call of “Merrilu” or any of their other chants, but with a great cry of anguish and loss.
Thomas led the group forward again, so that the Volunteers surrounded Mrs. Smith and Obar. Todd and Nick rushed to join them.
Mrs. Smith leaned against the steps that once led to the platform above the kettle. She looked as if she had just run a mile. Obar was on his knees, breathing heavily. Todd had never seen either of them look so drained.
“Watch it!” Stanley called.
The Anno, so still for a minute, then so full of grief, had begun to run. Most scurried away from them, but a few raced in their direction, as if the humans weren’t even there.
As they rushed forward, Todd could see recognition in the Annos’ eyes. Their foes were before them, the ones who had taken Mary Lou. The first among them rushed toward Todd with a shriek, not even bothering to draw its knife, all snatching claws and snapping jaws.
Todd managed to catch the thing by the head, flipping it around. He cut its throat with a single slash.
“These things have gone crazy!” he said as he saw most of the other attackers fall under the Volunteers’ arrows. One last Anno rushed forward to impale itself on Nick’s sword. The metal glowed as somehow the impaled Anno seemed to shrink.
Todd looked around quickly, to see if any more were coming, but all the Anno were gone or dead.
“They’re acting like berserkers,” Wilbert agreed. “Like they just don’t care.”
“Without Mary Lou,” the ghost-man said, “their lives have lost their meaning. You have taken away their reason for being.” Todd stared down at the bodies littering the log flooring. “We have?”
“So the People think.”
Stanley looked at the suddenly silent world around them. “So what are they doing now, hey?”
The ghost-man shrugged his shoulders. “What else can they do? They’ve gone to look for Mary Lou, no matter what it takes. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll find her anyplace—not on this world, anyway.”
This time Mrs. Smith stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“There was a great deal of power used here today. It caught everyone with sorcerous ability, draining them.”
“Except you,” Mrs. Smith pointed out.
“I’m not quite on this world myself,” the ghost-man replied with a slight smile. “It would take something very special to drain away the magic like that. I think we’ve just witnessed the first visit of the dragon.”
Not the first, Todd thought. But he didn’t want to say anything to this stranger.
“So the dragon took Mary Lou?” he asked instead.
“It is the only sensible explanation,” the ghost-man answered. “We can only hope that someplace, somewhere, the dragon brings her back.”
“Then Mary Lou is that important to the dragon?” Mrs. Smith considered.
“We are all important to the dragon,” Obar said, looking as if he had caught his breath at last. “That is why we’re here.”
“At the dragon’s whim, hey?” Stanley said caustically.
“Unless we can find a way to turn the dragon’s whim around,” Obar replied.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Stanley demanded. “Now do you see why I can’t trust wizards? They don’t talk with two tongues, they talk with a dozen!”
“Just because we can make magic,” Obar answered a bit defensively, “doesn’t mean we can explain it.” He coughed, a bit nervous to be the center of attention. “When you have a dragon’s eye, as I now do, you control a small piece of the dragon’s power. Because of this, these eyes are invaluable, but, despite their worth, many of them have remained hidden, beyond our grasp. Until now, that is.”
“Now?” Maggie asked. “What do you mean?”
“Now,” Obar continued, “these eyes are surfacing, pulsating with power, so that those who have had contact with one of these eyes might be able to find the others. Who knows why this is so? Perhaps the power comes from the proximity of the dragon. Or perhaps they are another sort of signal. Maybe the dragon wants someone to collect all seven eyes. Maybe this time, instead of controlling the world, the dragon wishes for someone to control it.”
“Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, hey?” Stanley scoffed. “I think the magic’s seeped into your brain.”
Obar smiled at that, as if Stanley’s comment was nothing more than a joke. “As far as we know, the dragon has risen and the world has been destroyed countless times, an endless cycle.” He paused, lifting a finger to point at the sky. “What if, this time, the dragon wanted to put an end to the cycle?”
“You mean that he’d want to destroy everything once and for all?” Maggie asked.
“Perhaps that,” Obar agreed. “Perhaps something else.”
“But how are we supposed to figure out something like that?” Stanley called in frustration. “How can we know something about the unknowable?”
“Maybe,” Todd said, surprised at the thought, “even the dragon doesn’t know.”
“But we’re forgetting about our friends, the Anno,” Wilbert called out with a frown. “What will happen if the Anno can’t find Mary Lou?”
The prince also frowned for an instant before replying. “They’ll do what they’re used to, kill things and eat them. Before, though, they were cautious. Now I half think they’ll kill anything that moves.”
Todd thought of his mother on the forest floor.
“They’ll attack the neighbors!” Maggie said at the same instant. “Down below.”
“God, what are we thinking of?” Thomas added.
The Volunteers were already headed down. For once, Todd hoped he wasn’t right.
The trees warned him a minute before the attack began.
“From above!” the Oomgosh warned the others. “Get to the middle of the clearing. As far from the tre
es as you can!”
Jason called to Charlie as the rest of the neighbors gathered around the Oomgosh at the dead center of the clearing. Mrs. Furlong had to be led by a couple of the others. They placed her so that she was the closest to the Oomgosh’s broad back.
He heard the first high shrieks as they formed a tight circle. “It’s the Anno!” Jason called over the rising noise.
“They are not happy,” the Oomgosh replied. “The trees tell me they’ve lost someone they love.”
There were maybe a hundred voices, filling the trees all around, voices filled with anger and pain, voices that wanted someone to pay for their grief.
“Watch out!” Jason called. Arrows flew from the nearer trees. But the clearing was too large. All but two of the tiny arrows fell far short, the others far wide of their little group. The Oomgosh saw that someone had shot one of those spears as well; those poison sticks. But the Anno had little experience with them, and the spear had not even made it as far as the arrows.
“They can’t touch us,” Mrs. Blake said softly.
“Not unless they are very lucky,” the Oomgosh agreed. “Or they decide to venture forth from the trees. And the Anno are cowards. The trees give them their advantage, and they seldom venture far away.”
The arrows stopped for a moment, and the screaming began anew. The sound doubled, and doubled again, causing the humans to cover their ears.
“I have never heard the Anno mourn this way,” the Oomgosh said.
When this was over, he would ask the trees what they had lost, “Oh, God,” Mrs. Dafoe whispered.
The Oomgosh saw them, too, then. The Anno were dropping from the trees. More than a dozen of them hit the ground and began to run toward them. They had left their bows behind, but they still held their knives.
“Now,” the Oomgosh said, “we will have to fight.”
He was ready, if he must. His strength was far more than that of humans, and even greater than the Anno. He could bat them away, break their necks, and crush them, even with only one arm.
Their knives would do little more than scratch his bark-like skin. With the luck of the dragon, maybe he and his companions could escape this unharmed.
One of the Anno paused in the attack and pulled the poison stick from the ground. The Oomgosh would have to be careful with that one.
All of the Anno screamed again as they rushed the neighbors. Some of the neighbors screamed back.
Fifty-Three
“That was a bit more successful than even I had imagined,” the cloud wizard admitted.
Mills simply couldn’t believe it. “Did we really push the jewel out of Nunn’s forehead?”
“Well, indirectly,” the cloud replied. “The pressure from you and Zachs set it free. I just slightly redirected the energy. Sort of the magic version of levers and pulleys. All simple machines, really.”
Mills imagined that made as much sense as anything.
“But what will Nunn do now?” Zachs insisted. “Nunn gets angry.
Very angry.”
“Yes,” Mills added. “How do you plan to negotiate?”
“Nunn has to deal with us now.” The cloud’s voice was so reassuring, almost anything it said sounded sensible. Or at least it did until Mills started thinking about it. “We’ll talk as soon as he awakes.”
From somewhere in the distance, Mills heard a distinct snore. “But Nunn will be angry!” Zachs insisted. “Nunn will destroy us!”
“How can he destroy us?” the cloud’s oh-so-reasonable voice replied. “After all, we’re a part of him.”
“Watch the spear,” the Oomgosh said to the others in the circle. “It is tipped with poison.”
The tree man remembered how the last poison stick had felt, how that simple scratch beneath his skin had burned as his arm had withered before him. He wouldn’t let that happen to him again, either to himself or to any of the humans he was protecting.
The Anno formed a wider circle around the tight-knit group of neighbors. They advanced slowly and silently, as if all they wanted to do was kill. All of the neighbors except Mrs. Furlong had weapons, too; knives mostly, although Jason had picked a hatchet, which he held with both hands.
“Be ready,” the Oomgosh further warned. “They will attack all at once.”
A second later, the Anno began their silent attack. “Oh, God,” one of the women said behind him.
“They’re small,” Mrs. Blake said by his side. “Aim low.”
The creature with the poison stick ran straight for the Oomgosh. He guessed the Anno thought the tree man wouldn’t make a very good meal.
But the creatures were not closing their circle evenly. The one with the spear was having trouble maneuvering with the long piece of wood before him. The Anno to either side would reach the neighbors’ circle first.
The Oomgosh stepped forward and grabbed the nearest Anno with his one hand. He twisted the creature about, flipping it over so it couldn’t use its knife, and threw the thing back on its fellow with the spear. Both Anno fell to the ground.
Mrs. Blake screamed at his side. Her knife clanged against the Anno’s, metal on metal. The Oomgosh reached for the Anno, who glanced up in fright. Mrs. Blake cut the thing across the chest. It collapsed, dragging itself back through the dirt.
Charlie leapt out of the group to take one of the Anno by the throat, shaking it until it ceased to struggle.
The Oomgosh turned to help the others.
“No!” Mrs. Jackson screamed. “Never again!” She swung the long knife before her like a broadsword. Two more of the Anno went down before her attack. The Oomgosh grabbed another that wanted to sneak back behind her, using his large hand to break the creature’s neck.
“Jesus!” Jason called nearby. The Oomgosh turned and saw the boy look up in horror as an Anno staggered away, the hatchet buried in its forehead.
Mrs. Dafoe was holding another of the creatures off, her knifepoint almost touching that of the creature. The Oomgosh reached forward and dispatched the Anno.
“Hey!” Bobby cried, moving forward with quick jabs of his knife. “Hey!” One Anno already lay dead behind him. Mrs. Jackson yelled again as her knife sliced into another of the creatures.
The Oomgosh saw movement in one corner of his eye. He turned and saw one of the last Anno rushing toward Margaret Furlong, left unprotected when the others had met the attack.
She looked up from the dirt as the thing scrambled forward. “Leo?” she asked.
The Oomgosh rushed toward the woman, his footfalls shaking the ground beneath him. He reached forward and grabbed the back of the Anno before it could plunge its knife into Mrs. Furlong’s throat.
There was a scream behind him. The Oomgosh knew the voice. It was Jason.
He turned around to see that the Anno with the spear had risen and was pushing Jason toward a large tree at one edge of the clearing. Jason’s hatchet was still lodged in the skull of the fallen Anno, and he had completely forgotten about the knife stuck behind his belt.
The Oomgosh felt a pricking sensation at his wrist. He glanced over to see the Anno he’d forgotten trying to stab him with its knife. He tossed the creature to the ground and crushed it with his foot.
The other neighbors were looking to him. It appeared that they had killed the rest of the attackers.
“Stay away from the poison!” the Oomgosh commanded as he quickly ran to Jason’s aid.
The Anno looked like it was smiling as it poked at Jason. The boy’s back was almost to a tree. There was nowhere he could run.
“Beware, my Oomgosh!” a call came from the sky. It was Raven.
But the tree man had no more time to be wary.
He reached forward toward the Anno, watching carefully to see if it would swing the spear.
“The trees, Oomgosh!” Raven called as he swooped closer. “Up in the trees.”
The Oomgosh glanced up as two Anno fell from above, their knives drawn. The tree man batted one aside with his hand, but the other grabbe
d onto the thick branches of the tree man’s hair and stabbed at his neck and cheek, reaching for the Oomgosh’s eye.
“Noooo!” Jason moaned. The Oomgosh grabbed the creature from his shoulder and threw it against the tree trunk. It hit with a sharp crack.
He turned to Jason. If they had done something to the boy—
But Jason looked unhurt, except for the fear in his eyes. He pointed back at the tree man.
The Oomgosh looked down. The poison stick was jutting from his chest. He felt the fire then, sudden and terrible, as he fell to his knees.
Jason pulled the spear from his chest as a new group of Anno dropped from the surrounding trees.
“Raven!” the tree man called to his oldest friend. “Protect them!” Then the pain became too great.
Fifty-Four
The Oomgosh couldn’t die.
Jason jabbed with the spear at the Anno falling around him. “You can’t kill him!” he cried. “I won’t let you!”
Bobby was rushing toward him, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Mrs. Blake and Mrs. Jackson weren’t far behind.
Charlie leapt out from the side of the tree, snapping at the Anno. He grabbed one by the leg and pulled it to the ground. Bobby was there now, too, his knife slashing at the three-foot- high creatures. But there were more of them dropping from the trees, dozens of them, as if the whole village had decided to join in the fight.
A black shape rocketed down from the sky. “No, you will not!” it squawked at the Anno. “Raven forbids it!”
Half a dozen of the Anno ran into the forest, as if the great bird’s claws were too much for them. The bird flapped his dark wings to pursue them. But it seemed that twice as many of the creatures dropped to take their place.
“Jason!” another voice called. “Step back from the trees.”
Jason looked around to see the magician Obar standing next to Mrs.
Smith.
“Now,” Obar said solemnly, “we will show you what happens when you attack humans.” He tossed a ball of fire at a cluster of the creatures. They shrieked as the magic flame consumed them.
The other Anno on the ground retreated, their shrieks echoing up in the trees. But even that high, eerie noise grew fainter, as if the Anno in the trees were retreating as well.
Dragon Sleeping (The Dragon Circle Trilogy Book 1) Page 36
