I wish to be heroic! A proper dragon! Why are there so many of these foul things? I—
I rubbed my forehead again. Out of all the dragons who could have popped up on this world, I had to get the teenage hippy, as Zav called him.
But then, what other dragon, besides Zav himself, would have bothered communicating with me or even recognized me if they’d shown up here?
Get yourself out of trouble, Xilneth, and pass along my message. Please!
He didn’t reply. I couldn’t sense him, but after a few quiet moments, Li hustled back under cover. The creatures sailed into range of my senses, and my stomach sank.
Had they given up because Xilneth made a portal and fled this world? Or had they, when he’d been distracted talking to me about heroics, caught him and killed him?
My camouflage charm was still active, and I willed Chopper to hide Li again, in case it had helped before. Then I leaned my forehead against the tree, birch-like bark cool against my skin, and willed myself to blend into the trunk so they wouldn’t notice me.
The creatures flew past overhead without stopping to search for us. Maybe they’d forgotten we were here.
Or maybe—I grimaced as I sensed them flying straight toward the black mountain—they were reporting back to their master that they’d killed Xilneth… and that we were out here somewhere.
22
Twilight settled on the forest as I sat in the moss, leaning my back against a tree, Chopper in its scabbard at my side. Li paced in front of me, thumping her fist against her thigh and muttering to herself in Chinese.
She could mutter all she wanted. I wasn’t continuing on. This was her quest. It wouldn’t become my quest until the lich was cleared out from the mountain and it was safe to stroll inside to visit the repository of knowledge. I’d waited ten years to learn Chopper’s secrets; I could wait ten more if need be. Though I trusted Zav’s people would be along to deal with this problem sooner than that.
Li stopped, faced me, and jammed her fists against her hips. “We must continue to the mountain.”
“I’m not going,” I said for the tenth time.
After the near miss with the flying skeletons, I’d refused to go farther. I’d been sitting under this tree for the last hour.
“I am positive there will be a device in there that can create a portal to take us back to Earth,” Li said.
“I’m positive that if there is, the lich will be sitting on it.”
“You have your stealth charm.” She pointed to my neck. “And you were able to help me hide even though I was not near you. The power of the dragon blade is great. We can sneak in without the lich knowing we are there.”
“Or we can wait until Xilneth gets word back to his people and an army of dragons shows up to deal with the lich.”
“You said yourself you don’t know if that dragon survived to take the message to others of his kind.”
Earlier, I’d shared the details of Xilneth’s visit and the conversation we’d had. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest.
“Even if he didn’t, Zav knows there’s a problem here. He’ll lead his people here soon.”
Li scowled. “You only want your powerful ally here so he can fly you and my sword away from me after I’ve proven to you that it does not belong to you. Do not think that I will not find a way home. If you flee, I will get it from you. I will return it and the other treasures I’ve reclaimed to my homeland, so that my people will be able to sell them and get out of poverty. And I will show my mother the sword that my father came to Earth to find so long ago. She will be proud of me for fulfilling his mission and reclaiming it for our family.”
“How wonderful for you.”
The scowl deepened, and her fingers twitched toward her dagger. I watched her, ready to spring to my feet to defend myself.
“I should have told you nothing.” Li dropped her hand, spun, and stalked into the trees.
“Fine with me.” I let my head clunk back against the trunk, hoping she would give up on me and continue to the mountain on her own. Though if the whole point of her going was to prove to me that Chopper was hers, there was little point in her going without me.
Li returned scant minutes later, her face more composed. Maybe she’d done some deep breathing or meditation—and was better at it than I was.
She sat cross-legged on the ground and pulled a few things out of her pack, including her canteen and an assortment of energy bars. My mouth watered. She’d given me one earlier, but we’d been here for a full day by now. My stomach was certain of it and growled pitifully. Li must have heard it for she glanced over, but she didn’t comment, merely returning to her pack. A blanket and a tiny collapsible lantern followed the food. Setting up camp for the night.
“Zav wouldn’t do what you think,” I said. “He wouldn’t fly me away with something stolen. He’s honorable, and he encourages me to be honorable.”
“Then why do you carry a stolen sword?”
“Because I don’t have proof that it’s stolen.”
“You know it is. You should have returned it to the dwarven people long ago.”
“They don’t knock on my door very often.”
“If you wished to find a way to them, you could have.” Li splayed her fingers across her chest. “I found the portal generator so I could come to this world.”
“Great. I’d award you a cookie if I had one, but you rudely sucked me off to another world without giving me time to raid my mom’s cupboards.”
Li gazed at me with a stony expression—or perhaps one lacking in understanding. So far, her English had proven good, but my sarcasm might be tough for a non-native speaker to decipher. Even Nin, who’d been in the country for years and was an excellent student of America, gave me puzzled looks from time to time.
“I will give you food,” Li said, “if you promise to continue to the repository with me in the morning.”
“Nope. I’ll just gnaw on my own stomach lining until Zav shows up.”
“It must be comforting to have a dragon at one’s beck and call.” She sounded bitter again.
I was beyond caring. I leaned my head back against the tree and said, “It is. If you want me to hook you up with one, let me know. Xilneth seems to be into mongrels.”
She didn’t respond to that. Good. I was done with the conversation.
I had no intention of sleeping while she was within a mile of me, but my feet and legs could use a rest after all that walking. In case she thought about trying something, I pulled Fezzik out of its holster and rested it in my lap. I shifted Chopper so that its scabbard was under my butt. It wasn’t comfortable, but it would make it difficult for her to slip in and take it.
A few seconds later, something struck me in the chest, and I almost sprang to my feet and pointed my gun at her. But it was only one of the energy bars.
I eyed her suspiciously, but she was opening a bar of her own, the wrapper rustling in the growing darkness, and not looking in my direction. She’d also put her back to a tree, opting to face the road, and pulled her stuff close. Noshing noises floated over to me.
My stomach growled again, but the thought that she might want to poison me burbled up in my mind. Not until she’d finished hers and rolled onto her side to sleep did I touch mine.
I pulled out my phone, which I’d barely touched since arriving, knowing there was nowhere to charge a battery here, and shone the flashlight app onto her gift. Even though I’d eaten one of her bars earlier and suffered no ill effects, I examined the label and made sure it hadn’t been opened before unwrapping it. As with the previous one, it was a familiar brand and had come from a grocery store, not some chemist’s lab.
After another pitiful whine from my stomach, I opened the bar and took a bite. Like other energy bars I’d had, it had the familiar unpalatable tang of strange protein powders that made the faux chocolate barely palatable, but I was hungry enough not to care. Not so hungry that I didn’t think fondly of my chocolate-covered caramels ba
ck home, but at the moment, I would have preferred a steak to either option.
After finishing, I stuck the wrapper in my pocket, not wanting to be the rude foreigner who littered on someone else’s planet, and leaned back again. Even though I had no intention of falling asleep, drowsiness came far more quickly than I expected. The long day’s hike, I supposed. The thought that I should summon Sindari to stand guard in case I fell asleep came to mind, but my arm was so heavy that I couldn’t manage the effort to lift it to touch my charm.
An alarm bell rang in the back of my mind. I never fell asleep so quickly or completely. I tried to stir myself, to at least grab Fezzik in case I needed it, but my arms remained limp at my sides.
The soft crunch of someone walking across the undergrowth reached my ears. Li.
I was in trouble, but I couldn’t do a thing about it. My body betrayed me, and I fell asleep.
23
It was full darkness when I woke with a start, heart pounding in my chest, hands and feet so numb they hurt. When I tried to push myself off the ground, my arms were almost as numb, and I pitched back down on my side.
Adrenaline surged through my veins as I feared I was having a heart attack or something equally bad. All by myself on an alien world. My lungs tightened, and I heard my own wheezing.
Damn it, how would Zav find me if I was dead?
I shook my hands and kicked my feet, willing the blood to return to them, so I could dig out my inhaler. Meanwhile, I tried not to panic at the thought that Li might have taken it. If she had, I was screwed. I didn’t sense her nearby. She was probably long gone, leaving me to be eaten by some nocturnal predator.
As soon as a semblance of normalcy returned to my hands, I dug out my inhaler, relieved to find it in my pocket. I patted around for my weapons and found Fezzik right away. It had tipped out of my lap when I’d fallen asleep—when I’d been drugged. But Chopper was nowhere around.
Even though I knew I wouldn’t find it, I couldn’t keep from patting all around on hands and knees, as if I might get lucky. Maybe she’d dropped it as she fled.
“Yeah, right,” I muttered, the words slurred.
Even my lips were numb. What had been in that bar, and how had she gotten it in there? I’d checked the wrapper so carefully.
“Thieves,” I grumbled, the word a curse.
Maybe I hadn’t been out for that long. Maybe it was still possible to catch her. Sindari could help.
If she hadn’t taken my charms. Fresh fear lurched through me at the thought, but when I reached up, I found the reassuring feline shape of his charm. The others were all there too. Strange mercies from a thief.
“Sindari,” I whispered to summon him. “I need your help.”
I am always prepared to go into battle, he said as soon as he formed at my side.
“It’s your nose that I need right now, though if we catch her, I’ll let you kick her ass again.”
Sindari gazed around, nostrils already sniffing, as I explained what had happened.
He padded over to the tree where Li had been sitting. I can tell that she was here, but I believe it has been several hours since she left.
I slumped against my own tree and rubbed my temple, a fledgling headache creeping into my skull. “I was hoping whatever she gave me hadn’t knocked me out for that long.”
After sniffing around the area, Sindari headed to the road and stood with his snout in the direction we’d been walking. Toward that damn mountain.
She went this way.
“Of course she did.” I holstered Fezzik, looked around as if I might have other gear along to grab, but I had nothing, not even a bottle of water. “She could have left me a Gatorade.”
Disgusted, I hobbled to the road, waving for Sindari to lead. A blister that had developed during the day’s walk had proven impervious to my usually fast healing. Maybe that drug had affected my regenerative abilities. Lovely.
Would you have consumed a beverage given to you by the person who poisoned your meal?
“Depends how thirsty I was.”
His green eyes gazed judgingly at me.
“She’s already got my sword. It’s not like she has another reason to drug me.”
Your pace is slow. Are you still under the effects of the drug?
“Yeah.” That sounded less wussy than admitting to a blister. I sucked up the discomfort and picked up my pace.
If I were not tethered to your charm by magic, I could race ahead and perhaps catch her.
“I really wish the magic worked that way, because I do not want to go where she’s going.” I summed up what she’d told me about the lich, since he hadn’t been there for that discussion.
Sindari looked at me, this time with concern instead of judgment. I do not want to go there either. Even a dwarven or elven lich would be difficult to battle. I cannot imagine how powerful a dragon lich is.
“Powerful enough to make those skeletal minions that tried to kick our asses.” I remembered Sindari flying over the trees after our winged nemesis flung him off. I also remembered the ghoulish gouges that would have killed him if not for the dragon healer.
The master is always significantly more powerful than the minions.
“Fact of life.” I would have sighed, but I was too busy forcing my legs into a jog—and regretting that I’d let my cardio workouts slide of late. Willard would be ashamed of me. Sadly, my jog was barely a trot for Sindari.
I will run to the edge of my range and see if I can catch her. He sped off down the road.
Just come back to help me if minions show up.
Naturally.
The forest thinned, and the black mountain loomed larger and more ominously on the horizon. The only good thing was that I didn’t see any volcanic smoke wafting from its peak. I had no desire to crawl through magma tubes or breathe any more toxic air this year.
Some of the winged creatures are leaving the mountain, Sindari told me from farther up the road.
I’m really starting to hate those guys. I activated my cloaking charm. Hide yourself with your magic, and let’s hope they don’t notice us.
As much as Sindari loved battle, I doubted he wanted to fight the undead creatures again. Especially when Zav wasn’t here to transport him to a healer afterward.
I am, Sindari replied. I thought I glimpsed someone climbing up the lower levels of the mountain a couple of miles ahead, but then the person glanced back and darted out of my view. The thief also has a cloaking charm, does she not?
Actually, I think you broke it or ripped it off back at Mom’s place. I grimaced, realizing Li would have a harder time hiding now. Unless she knew better than I how to use Chopper and could summon some magical camouflage from it.
Sindari did not respond. Eight creatures flew into view over the mountain, dark winged shapes against the starry night sky.
“Why can’t this lich ever just send out one or two?” With my charm active, I remained on the road longer than I otherwise would have. I wanted to see which direction they flew.
I am making my way back to you in case we need to do battle, Sindari said.
Thank you.
The creatures swept down the front of the mountain, their dark bodies blending into the dark terrain and growing difficult to see. But I sensed them now. They were flying around the foothills in a search pattern.
Is that where you saw Li? I spotted Sindari heading toward me, trotting through the trees alongside the road, our link making him visible to my eyes.
It is the approximate area where I saw someone, yes.
My first thought was that it would be better if they found Li than me, but what if they succeeded in killing her and took Chopper home as a gift for their master? Would a dragon lich care about a magical sword? Maybe not in general, but he might care about a magical sword that could harm dragons. He might prefer it be buried in a mountain where nobody could ever find it. Or was it possible that he would destroy it?
Maybe it was silly to feel so distraught
at the idea of losing a possession, but fresh frustration bubbled up inside of me. Chopper made my job a lot more doable than it would be without it. Even now, I was keenly aware that I had nothing that would harm those creatures if they came after me. Sindari might do some damage, but I’d already seen that Fezzik was useless against them.
The winged creatures appeared again in the sky over the mountain, confusing me because my senses told me they were still searching the foothills. Then I realized it was another batch of them. That brought the total to sixteen.
I really hope they can’t see us with our camouflage magic activated. I placed a hand on Sindari’s back as he joined me.
He turned to watch them. As do I.
The second batch of creatures did not join the first. My gut knotted as they flew away from the mountain—and toward us.
Off the road, I urged, slipping silently into the trees.
Sindari selected a nearby hiding spot. With the branches overhead now, I could no longer see the creatures, but their auras grew stronger as they flew closer.
I willed my magic to further hide us, if possible, and resolved to spend more time learning from Freysha if I survived this week. Not having Chopper made me keenly aware of how nice it would be to have more powerful—and versatile—skills to draw upon.
As one, the creatures flew over the trees, drawing closer and closer. I held my breath. Earlier, the others hadn’t seemed to see through the camouflage magic, but maybe they’d simply been distracted by Xilneth’s approach.
This time was no different. This new batch didn’t circle my area. They flew past without slowing down.
I let my breath out, relieved but still concerned. Where were they going? The others were still searching the mountainside.
A familiar aura brushed my senses.
Zav! I cried out telepathically before I could catch myself. I crossed my fingers that the creatures hadn’t detected that, but they were flying… Crap. They were flying toward Zav. And was that Xilneth I sensed too? The two dragons were at the edge of my range.
Secrets of the Sword 2 (Death Before Dragons Book 8) Page 19
