Bloodfire Quest (13 page)

He closed his eyes against his weariness and dismay, feeling suddenly alone and abandoned. Redden was gone and Mirai felt removed and distant and he was sick at heart because of it. He hated that he had come on this expedition and hated even more that he had been the one who had pushed for all of them to come. He had thought it would be such a big adventure. Now he just wanted things back the way they had been before, with the three of them returned to Patch Run and the Highlands of Leah. He wanted Mirai’s attentions focused on him, and he wanted Austrum gone. He wanted them all safe, and he was beginning to think that might never happen.

Then he realized how he sounded and was instantly ashamed. This wasn’t like him. The brothers had never been the sort to feel sorry for themselves or whine about their situations. They had never despaired of being able to work things out.

What is happening to me?

Farshaun ambled over and sat next to him. He had a nasty wound on his head and bruises on his face. “You need to sleep, Railing. You look terrible.”

The boy nodded. “I know that.”

“You did well last night. You saved us all. You and Seersha.”

“Not the Speakman, we didn’t.”

The old man nodded. “No, not him. But I don’t think he expected to be saved. He came here to die. Maybe he believed his own prophecy enough to want it to come to pass. We did what we could to prevent it from happening, but sometimes there just isn’t any way. And maybe he was right and none of us is coming back from this.”

The boy stayed silent, watching Mirai return across the precipice. When she reached them, she knelt down and embraced him and kissed him on the cheek. “Let’s be friends again, Railing. Let’s not argue about things that don’t matter.”

He couldn’t help himself. He nodded and smiled gratefully. “I want that, too. I’m sorry about before.”

She leaned in again and this time kissed him on the mouth. “It’s forgotten. You told me how you felt. I understand. I worry about you, too.”

He wasn’t sure she did understand, but he didn’t want to say so. It was enough that they were talking again and not angry at each other. He knew he was being foolish; all this nonsense about Austrum would pass. Once they were out of this place and on their way home, things would go back to the way they had been.

Seersha had turned and was heading toward them when she abruptly stopped and looked back. A soft white glow was emanating from somewhere below the precipice. Seersha moved back over to the edge and then quickly beckoned to the others. Railing, in spite of his exhaustion and the damage to his leg, levered himself to his feet with Mirai’s help and hobbled over to where the Druid knelt. When he peered over he saw a bright splash of light spilling out of a cleft in the rocks.

“Shades!” Mirai Leah hissed.

A moment later Crace Coram passed through the light and stood looking up at them.

With the new day brightening in a haze of gray mist and dull light and the remnants of the Druid expedition gathered about him, Crace Coram told his story. He had climbed up to the ledge to join the little company, the light through which he had passed having disappeared the moment he emerged from it. Now they were arrayed in a tight circle—Railing, Mirai, Seersha, Skint, and Farshaun Req—listening intently to the Dwarf Chieftain.

Oriantha was still inside the place in which they had all been trapped, he began, but he would get to that in a minute.

When the dragon lifted off in the midst of its battle with the members of the expedition, the Dwarf Chieftain, still riding its back and trying to bring it down, was caught by surprise. He tried to jump clear, but his clothing was tangled in the dragon’s spikes, and by the time he had torn himself free the dragon was already too high up. All he could do at that point was to hang on and try not to fall off.

It helped that he was immensely strong, but even so it took everything he had to keep his balance as the dragon’s wings rose and fell and its long body undulated like a snake’s. The wind whipped at the Dwarf, threatening to tear him loose, and he flattened himself against the scaly body to reduce its force.

At some point during his flight, he became aware of someone else clinging to the dragon, a flash of movement or color drawing his attention. When he glanced back down the dragon’s body, he found a creature he didn’t recognize plastered against its hindquarters, a thing that looked half human, half wolf. Its face lifted to find his, and for just an instant he saw the girl Oriantha looking back at him. Then the green eyes narrowed and the creature’s jaws drew back in a snarl, and what he might have thought was human disappeared.

But the creature did not try to advance on him, and so the Dwarf let it be and used his energy to fight back against the wearing demands of keeping his seat. He did his best to try to get a fix on his position during his flight, sighting various landmarks that he thought he might be able to use to find his way back once he got down off the dragon—something he never doubted would happen eventually. There were distinctive mountain peaks and a huge lake and a large stretch of rugged wilderness, and he could determine where he needed to go by noting where these lay.

But heavy clouds stretched from horizon to horizon, hiding the sun and making it impossible to determine the direction in which he was moving. When the dragon underwent an unexpected shift in its flight pattern, his landmarks disappeared into a range of mountains that eventually obscured everything he had memorized and left him totally turned about and unable to determine how he had gotten to where he was.

The dragon flew on until finally it reached a forested lake and made an abrupt downward plunge. Crace Coram barely had time to register what was happening before the dragon was diving into the lake waters and he was forced to fling himself clear. He landed with an enormous splash, struggled back to the surface gasping for air, and immediately began swimming toward a spit of land several hundred yards away. Burdened by his mace, which was shoved into his belt, and by his heavy clothing, he nevertheless completed the journey in record time, looking back only once when he heard the dragon surface with a thrashing that sounded like a thousand waterbirds taking flight.

But the creature began moving in another direction, and once the Dwarf Chieftain was certain it was not coming back, he continued his swim until his feet were again on solid ground. He collapsed momentarily but quickly hauled himself upright and off the exposed shoreline until he was hidden in the trees. Out on the lake, the dragon had reached a small island and was disappearing into a rocky stretch at its center—a place in which the Dwarf assumed it might have its nest.

He lay back, his heart pounding, exhausted by what had happened, safe for the moment but wondering how he was going to find his way back to the others.

Then a shadow fell over him, and he jerked upright to find Oriantha standing next to him, her young face bruised and her clothing ripped almost to shreds. She looked pale and disoriented, and without saying anything she dropped down next to him and looked back out across the waters of the lake to the island where the dragon had gone.

“Why did you do it?” he asked her after a minute.

She looked at him with her strange eyes. “What?”

“Grab hold of the dragon and let it carry you off as it did me. That was foolish.”

“I didn’t think about it. I just did it.”

“So that
was
you I saw back there hanging on to its hindquarters, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. “My other self. I had to stay that way in order to keep my grip. I am much stronger that way.” She paused. “You know what I am, don’t you?”

“A shape-shifter. I’ve seen one or two. But you’re no full-blood. You’re a Halfling.”

“Human mother, shape-shifter father. Hard to tell the difference between them, though, sometimes.”

“But Pleysia must have known the truth when she brought you along. Why did she keep it secret from the rest of us? Why did you?”

Oriantha hesitated. “I don’t suppose it will hurt to tell you at this point, since the Ard Rhys already knows. Pleysia is my mother—a full-blown witch who mated with a creature of magic and produced me. All this before she came to live with the Druids. But she never told anyone. She wanted me to follow in her footsteps. She wanted to bring me to Paranor when I was older and offer my skills to the order in exchange for being admitted as a member. Then she found out she was dying. She suffers from a rare disorder that is eating her body from the inside. There is no cure. So she brought me along on this expedition, thinking that if I distinguished myself I might gain admittance after she was gone. That the Ard Rhys would have to take me in.”

The Dwarf nodded. “She didn’t think she was coming back from this, did she?”

“She was certain she wasn’t. But she made me promise to say nothing until we were far enough out that the Ard Rhys couldn’t make me return. I think a few of the others saw what I was during the attacks in the Fangs, though. Those boys saw me, I know.”

Coram nodded. “The Ohmsfords, Redden and Railing. Those two don’t miss much, even if they’re still a bit on the new side of knowing. But they didn’t say anything to the Ard Rhys?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

He looked down at his boot tops and scuffed his feet along the earth absently. “How are your tracking skills? We have to find our way back, but I don’t think I know where we are.”

“I don’t think I do, either,” she said, “but I might be able to get us back anyway.”

He shifted his stocky body to a different position. “How?”

She shrugged. “Look at me. I am half animal, maybe more. I can find direction as my animal self much better than any human could. I can sense how and where to go. But you will have to bear me looking the way you saw me on the dragon.”

“I’ve borne much worse in my time.” He paused. “Tell me. Which is the way you really are?”

She laughed softly. “There is no one way with me. I am both ways and others, too. I have no real self. I shift back and forth as need dictates. But each form gives me something that helps me. So I just accept that I am not one thing or the other, but many.”

He gave a quick snort. “You can be any one or all at once if it helps us find our way to the others.” He fumbled his pack off his shoulders and began fishing through it. “I have some food. We ought to eat something before we start out.”

They sat together in silence, the burly Dwarf and the young girl, sharing a little of the food stash that had survived the dragon ride and lake plunge, keeping an eye on the distant island and an ear pricked for other predators. When they were finished, they rose and faced each other. Oriantha smiled at the Dwarf almost apologetically and then abruptly changed into her other self, wolfish and dangerous. The young girl was gone completely, and the predator returned from hiding once more.

The Dwarf only barely managed to hold his ground until the shape-shifter wheeled away with a snarl.

Their journey took them through the remainder of the day. Oriantha’s animal self took the lead, loping ahead of the slower-moving Dwarf, seeming to sense which direction they needed to go even without knowing either their destination or the distance they must cover. Now and again, she circled back to him, her wolfish face staring up at his, looking savage and hungry enough to give him pause. But each time she wheeled away quickly and was off again.

They encountered no visible threats that day, perhaps because they were in the dragon’s territory and nothing it might want to eat chose to live so close by. They did not see the dragon, either. Perhaps its struggle with the company had been enough for one day; perhaps it had flown off again in another direction. Whatever the case, they made good progress and avoided any confrontations.

That night they took turns keeping watch, finding shelter within a rocky overhang that enclosed them on three sides and required only that they defend themselves from the front should something come after them. But nothing did, and when morning returned they were well rested.

“Where do you think we are?” she asked him as they ate a little dried beef and fruit from the stores he still had in his pack. She had changed back again to the girl, and there was a winsome quality to her that made her seem little more than a child. “What part of the Westland is this?”

Crace Coram had been wondering that, too. “I’ve never seen or heard of country like this. Nor of dragons. Not for a long time. They were all sent into the Forbidding, weren’t they? Back in the time of Faerie?”

“It is said. But they must have missed this one.”

“Those creatures that attacked us in the Fangs—the four-legged ones with all the teeth?” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen them before, either. Where did they come from that no one has ever run across them before now? You would think the Elves might have encountered one or two at some point, no matter how deep inside the Westland they live.”

His face clouded. “If we find our way back, I’m not going on. This is madness. If the Ard Rhys wants her Elfstones so badly, she can go get them herself. I’ll tell Seersha I’ve had enough.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Will you?”

He started to say something and stopped. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He paused. “But that’s what I should do. What we all should do.”

They set out again shortly afterward, heading toward a line of mountains that provided the only landmark they recognized, traveling through bleak country marked by stretches of dead and dying trees and rocky flats empty even of that. They found no other water on their way, not even a stream, and the mountains seemed as distant today as they had the day before. Crace Coram could not be certain, but it seemed to him they were weeks away from where they needed to go.

On this day, they encountered a huge horned beast that resembled a bull crossed with a lizard. They saw it coming from a long way off, lumbering across the flats, slow and ponderous, and had plenty of time to avoid it. They did not have quite so much warning of the cat creatures they caught sight of several hours later from atop a rise overgrown with dead grasses, which was probably what saved them. The cat things found something else to occupy them—a thing that neither the Dwarf nor the girl ever had a chance to identify—converging on their victim and tearing it to bits in short minutes.

Afterward, safely off to one side as the cat things moved on, the Dwarf said, “Those aren’t anything I’ve ever heard of or seen, either. Not anywhere in the Four Lands.”

She was silent a moment. “I don’t think that’s where we are,” she answered quietly.

It took him aback. “What do you mean? Where else would we be?”

Her face began to change again, the wolfish side emerging. “Somewhere no one has ever been, maybe. Somewhere bad.”

He thought about it for a moment. They hadn’t crossed any large bodies of water, so they had to be still on the mainland. She was saying they were in a place within the Four Lands—or maybe just outside the known boundaries—that no one had been before. But even that didn’t feel right.

“Wherever we are,” he finished, climbing to his feet again, “we shouldn’t be there.”

They walked for the rest of that day and for two full days afterward and still didn’t reach the mountains. Time and again, they encountered new dangers, ones that neither had come across before. A huge lizard attacked Crace Coram, and it took all of Oriantha’s animal skills and strength to drive it away. A strange plant threw spikes at the shape-shifter, and the poison on the tips of the three that penetrated her animal hide would have killed her if the Dwarf hadn’t cut into her skin with his hunting knife and sucked it out. Twice more they encountered the cat things, and once they saw the dragon fly overhead, scouring the ground below for food.