The group turned and noticed him for the first time. “You’re not from here,” one girl said, matter-of-factly.
“Yeah, I’m just passing through. That old man seemed pretty upset. Did something happen?”
“Yes,” she answered. “It happened a long time ago, though. Ronard is a former dragon rider.”
“Former?” Will knew he didn’t understand much about dragon riders, but the impression he’d gotten from all the songs was that the bond with a dragon was unbreakable, permanent.
“His dragon died,” a man explained in a low voice. “It happened over forty years ago. They had an accident while training for the dragon games. It still bothers him.”
“If it bothers him so much, why did he even come to see the egg?” The girl sniffed in irritation. “This is supposed to be a party. If he wanted to be around dragons, he could have stayed in the dragonhold.”
“You don’t know anything,” another girl said, rolling her eyes. “Dragons and riders live in caves high on cliffsides. You can’t get there without riding on a dragon. He couldn’t stay in the dragonhold, even if he wanted to.”
“And he wouldn’t want to,” the man said. “I’ve heard that being around dragons when you’ve lost your own is like torture.”
“Then why did he come?” the first girl demanded again, waving her hand toward the egg displayed on the table.
The man frowned and rubbed his chin. “Maybe never being around dragons again is also like torture.”
Feeling a strange sense of unease, Will reached back and felt the weight of the dragon egg in his bag, reassuring himself that it was still safe.
He wandered away from that group and mingled with other partygoers, eating sweet breads, meat rolls, candied fruits, and drinking more ginger water. He listened to the songs and even tried to sing a few of them. The others watched him in amusement, like he was someone who’d never heard of Christmas trying to learn the words to Jingle Bells for the first time.
As the sky darkened, Will sat in a dark corner, wondering what he should do about finding a place to sleep. Suddenly, he caught sight of a familiar face peering at him from the other side of the room. He blinked and sat up straighter, trying to get a better look. As soon as he moved, the face turned away and melted into the crowd.
Will stood, forgetting his weariness. For a moment, he’d been sure he recognized Tavin glaring at him. Tavin, the bully who’d made his life miserable on Elder Madoc’s estate, who’d told him no dragon would ever want him, who had intentionally hurt Dancer just to cause trouble for Will.
He pushed through the crowd to the opposite side of the room, looking all around, but found no sign of Tavin. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Will rubbed his face and yawned. With the sun setting, he was really feeling his sleepless night again.
Making his way out of the crowded inn, Will noticed a barn at the lower corner of town. It might not be the most luxurious place to stay, but at least it would be sheltered and dry and he wouldn’t need to share it with anyone. He only needed a safe place to lie down for a few hours before going on his way again.
He walked down the hill to the barn and peeked around before opening the door to make sure no one was going to stop him.
That’s when he noticed the new cormants tied outside the inn. The young bird at the end of the row had a spray of bright-red feathers around its beak. Thick strips of blue fabric wrapped around its legs.
Will would recognize that cormant anywhere. It was Slash. Tavin was there after all. Will slid in through the door of the barn, keeping his eyes on the inn, just in case his enemy should appear.
What was Tavin doing way out here? His father’s estate was south of Aldlake. What could have brought him out to this remote village, miles away from his home?
Will slid the door closed and rubbed his hands over his aching eyes. It didn’t matter what Tavin was doing out here. First thing in the morning, Will would leave him behind and never see him again. He just needed to get some sleep first.
A mound of fresh, dry straw filled a stall in the back corner of the barn. Will climbed in. The straw whooshed and crackled under his hands and knees. It was delightfully springy, but also kind of pokey and itchy. He shuffled around until he found a comfortable position where he wasn’t getting jabbed with the sharp ends of straw stalks. Then he cradled the bag with his dragon egg in his arms and fell asleep.
The sound of the big barn door rolling open and a blinding shaft of sunlight woke him in the morning.
“Huh? Wha . . .” he mumbled groggily.
“Oh? Who’s in there?” a man’s voice called.
Will brushed loose straw out of his hair and struggled into a sitting position. “It’s . . . um . . . me? Sorry, I just needed somewhere to sleep for the night.”
Will threaded an arm through one strap of his bag and gripped the top of the wall, pulling himself up to look over the edge of the stall.
The man standing in the doorway looked familiar. Will recognized him from the party. He was the one who’d explained about Ronard, the former dragon rider.
“It’s okay. The inn was full, so there weren’t many other options, were there? Oh, I remember you,” the man said, peering closer at Will. “You were at the party yesterday.”
“Yeah, I was.” Will squinted at the bright golden sunlight pouring in through the open door. “Holy cow, what time is it? I didn’t mean to stay so long.” He lifted his bag onto his back . . .
. . . and instantly knew something was wrong.
“Wait, what?” He dropped his bag in the straw and pulled it open, heart pounding. But he already knew the truth. He knew what would be missing.
The blanket was there. His extra clothes were there. His water and his tools and his medicine were there.
The dragon egg was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Will reached into his bag, frantically shuffling through his things even though he already knew it was useless. “What? No! Where’d it go?”
“Where did what go?” the man at the barn door asked.
“My egg!” Will gave up on his bag and started digging through the straw, pulling great clumps of the prickly yellow stalks aside to see if the egg had somehow gotten buried in it while he slept. “Oh no oh no oh no oh no . . .” He hurled armloads of straw over his head and reached down into the corners and along the walls of the stall, but he couldn’t feel anything.
“You had a cormant egg? Shouldn’t that be in an incubator?” The man leaned against the outside wall, watching as Will frantically raked more straw aside.
“No! It was a dragon egg!”
The man leaned slightly back with raised eyebrows. “I don’t remember you being on the team. Those boys left for the mountains hours ago.”
“I wasn’t on their team!” Will yelled. “I had my own egg! It looked different from theirs, but it was really a dragon egg!” He knew it wouldn’t do any good getting mad at this stranger, who was only trying to help, but he couldn’t help himself. His heart was racing, he was hyperventilating, his fingers trembled as he groped through his bag one more time. His egg was gone. It was really and truly gone.
“Maybe you should check the inn. Is it possible you left it there?”
Will slung his bag over his shoulders and vaulted out of the stall. His injured foot ached when he landed, but he paid no attention to that. Straw clung to his clothes and his hair, pricking his skin where it poked through. He didn’t even pause to brush off his clothes. He had to find his egg!
As he ran up the road to the inn, he asked several people whether they’d found a strangely colored dragon egg. None of them had. Some recognized Will from the party and said it surprised them he was missing a dragon egg, as they hadn’t known he was an egg holder.
When he made it to the inn, he talked to everyone inside, asking whether they’d found his missing dragon egg. It took several minutes to get them to understand that he wasn’t talking about the egg from the party. He had to explain sever
al times that his egg looked different and that he’d kept it hidden in his bag the whole time. The more he tried to explain, the more anxious he felt. He wrung his hands and bounced on his feet, wishing he could run but knowing he had to find out where to go first.
“How does it look different?” one woman asked, leaning against the bar with her head cocked to the side, like they had all the time in the world.
“It’s all . . . shiny. Like metal. It’s gold and kind of green and blue too.” He held out his hands to show the size of his egg, as though that would help describe the color. He felt silly for doing that and dropped his hands again.
“I never would have thought . . .” She shook her head, looking incredulous.
“What? Have you seen it?” Will demanded.
“A boy came through early this morning, asking for food to help him on his way to the hatching ground. He claimed he found his egg down near Aldlake. The egg he showed me looks just like the one you described. He left here a few hours ago.”
In a flash of foggy memory, Will remembered seeing Tavin at the party the previous night, and his cormant, Slash, tethered out front waiting for him. He’d wondered what Tavin was doing so far from home all by himself, and now he knew. He’d come to steal Will’s egg and run off to the hatching ground.
Will grabbed fistfuls of hair and groaned out a strained thank you to the woman before racing out the door and back into the street. He didn’t stop when the man at the barn called out, “Did you find it?” People strolling up and down the road gasped and exclaimed as he raced past them.
He had to catch up to Tavin. He had to get his egg back.
He left the town behind, turned onto the dirt road that led toward Fire Mountain, and ran. He kept running when he got a stitch in his side, making it painful to breathe. He kept going when his sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging and making his vision blur. He kept running when the sun blazed on his shoulders and the top of his head.
Now and then, he came to a crossroads and paused, second-guessing the road he should be on. The bard had told him to stay on the road that followed the river, but what if Tavin took a different way? Then again, if Will chose a different road, he might get lost and never find his way to the hatching ground, with or without a dragon egg. He stuck to the main road and kept going.
Most of the day passed in this way, racing along the road, pausing only to drink water or second guess his route. None of the people he met could remember seeing a boy with a strangely colored dragon egg. Only a few could remember seeing a boy riding a cormant alone.
As evening approached, Will was nearly at the end of his strength. His throat was raw from panting in the hot air. The skin of his face burned and felt tight. Sweat soaked his clothes. And his injured foot, which he thought had been healing well, flared with pain with every step he took.
He limped along the road, still heading toward the mountain, wondering what he would do after the sun went down. Could he bring himself to go to sleep? Could he keep going in the coal blackness of night and risk passing Tavin on the road without seeing him?
The sound of cormant claws patting against the dirt got his attention. He turned around to see three cormants and their riders running up the road toward him, shadowy shapes against the bright setting sun.
Will raised his hand to block the glare of the sun as the cormants approached. When the riders came into view, he realized he recognized them. It was the girls from the Aldlake bard hall. Anri rode in the lead on a cormant with bright-orange wing feathers, followed by her two friends.
“It really is him!” the blonde-haired girl said, pulling up alongside Anri. “Swarms! How did you make it so far already?”
Will limped to the side of the road to avoid being directly in front of the cormants. The birds looked agitated, and he didn’t want to be in the way of one of their kicks.
He licked his chapped lips and said, “I walked all night the first night. Then I ran almost all day today.” His voice came out in a dry croak. He swallowed painfully before continuing. “I have to catch up to Tavin. I have to. Please, can you help me?”
The three girls glanced at one another.
“Who’s Tavin?” Rin asked.
“And why should we help you?” the blonde girl added.
“Lexi! There’s no need to be nasty.”
“I have a better question,” Anri said, nudging her cormant forward so she could get a better look at his bag. “Why do you need to catch up to this person? And what happened to your dragon egg?”
Will groaned in despair. “He stole it! It had to be him! Tavin’s cormant was at the village. I saw him there. I didn’t know why he was following me, but I knew he was hunting for an egg of his own. He took my egg while I was asleep.”
“Someone stole your dragon egg?” Rin asked with so much shock and disgust in her voice it was like she’d heard that someone stole a baby.
Will only nodded.
“Anri, I think—”
“Rin . . .” Anri held up a hand to stop her. “I know.”
“He’ll only slow us down!” Lexi said.
“I thought you two would only slow me down, but look what happened when we finally teamed up.” She patted the heavy saddlebag strapped behind her.
Rin and Lexi exchanged a meaningful look that Will didn’t understand. Then Rin nodded and Lexi sighed in resignation.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Will said, holding his hands out desperately. “I was rude at the bard hall. I wasn’t trying to be, but I understand why you don’t like me. Just . . . please, I need help to catch up to Tavin. I have to get my egg back!”
Anri closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, as though she was saying a silent prayer for patience. She took a breath, then opened her eyes again. “Fine. I’ll help you.”
“Really? Thank you!”
Next to her, Lexi rolled her eyes dramatically.
“But I don’t know how we’ll manage it,” Anri said. “We’ve only got three cormants, and there are already three of us.”
“But your cormants are fully grown. They can carry multiple riders, can’t they? Especially yours. He’s got a lot of muscle in his legs.”
He approached Anri’s bird from the side. When it didn’t balk or fluff its feathers, he ran his hand over its thigh, feeling its powerful muscles.
“Wait,” Lexi protested. “You’re supposed to be an off-lander who doesn’t know anything about dragon eggs, but now you’re a cormant expert?”
Will frowned. “I’m not a cormant expert. I was training with Stable Master Gellan at Elder Madoc’s estate. I learned some things while I was there.”
Lexi raised her eyebrows at this but didn’t comment.
“I don’t know how to ride double,” Anri confessed. “I’m not good at riding in the first place. What if Brightfeather doesn’t know how to carry two?”
“Well . . . let’s see.” Will raked a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. He paced around Anri’s cormant, trying to gauge the bird’s temperament. The way he kept bobbing his head, snapping his beak, and panting told Will he was probably thirsty, but he made no move to threaten Will or throw Anri off. He seemed to be well-trained. “If you don’t mind, I think we should take your birds to the river for a drink. Then we can try riding him together and see how he handles it.”
The girls were clearly skeptical, but Anri dismounted, and together they led the birds to the riverfront. Anri’s little squirrel-like critter jumped to the ground and bounced around their feet, skittering through the grass and eating bugs as they went.
When they reached the water, Brightfeather took a long drink. With his thirst quenched, he seemed more relaxed, so Will gave him the command to sit, gently tugging on the reins and pointing down. The cormant blinked his eyes, then folded his long legs, settling himself on the ground.
“Whoa! How did you do that?” Rin asked.
“What? Tell him to sit? Stable Master Gellan taught me a lot of cormant commands.”
Will shrugged. He hadn’t thought that telling an animal to sit and having it obey was showing off. How would the girls react if they’d met his old dog, Bigsby, who used to open doors and turn off lights on command?
Before climbing into the cormant saddle, Anri looked around on the ground like she’d lost something. “Trouble?”
“What?”
Before she could answer, her furry critter bounded out of the grass and climbed up to her shoulder, shaking its striped tail.
“This is Trouble. It’s her name, and it’s well deserved,” Anri explained as the creature turned to size Will up with her big dark eyes.
Will reached out to pet the fluffy critter.
“I recommend keeping your fingers away from her teeth.”
He pulled his hand back instantly. “She bites? That might be a problem if we’re going to be riding together.”
With Trouble on her shoulder, Anri climbed into the saddle and grabbed the reins. “You’re welcome to keep running up the mountain on foot,” she said archly.
Trouble buried herself in Anri’s long hair, curled around, then poked her head and ears out to look at him again.
Will shrugged and limped forward. He’d have to risk tiny sharp teeth inches from his nose if he wanted to have any hope of catching Tavin and getting his egg back.
Anri scooted forward to make space for him, and Will slung one leg over the cormant’s back. There wasn’t much room, but the saddlebag behind him helped him feel more secure.
“All right, I’m settled.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t demanding to sit in front,” Anri said, sliding her feet into the stirrups.
Will chuckled. “There’s one problem with that. I don’t know how to ride a cormant. Stable Master Gellan taught me to care for them, not ride them.”
“Oh, good. That makes two of us.” She squeezed Brightfeather’s sides, and the bird lurched to its feet.
With no stirrups or handles or anything to hold him in his seat, Will slid and nearly fell off the cormant. He grabbed onto the only thing available to him, Anri’s waist.
Secret of the Dragon Egg (Dragon Riders of Avria Book 1) Page 14
