DragonKnight (26 page)

         
33
         

N
ORTH

As they traveled north, the trees showed a less mature green, reminding Bardon that spring was several weeks newer in the northern part of Amara. Cooler nights also reinforced the feeling of a different climate.

They camped one night by the sea, where waves crashed against granite cliffs. Bardon paused in his assembly of the tent N’Rae and her grandmother would sleep in to watch the silhouetted ballet of the dragons over the water. Of course, he knew they were merely fishing, gorging themselves to be exact, but the beauty of six dragons plunging into the waves and then reemerging to soar through the orange-tinted skies took his breath away.

“Oh my!” N’Rae’s exclamation at his side expressed how he felt. She turned, her eyes seeking out Granny Kye. “Look, Grandmother. Everyone, come see.”

She insisted that each member of the party stop what they were doing and gather at the top of the cliff. Huge, rough boulders served as seating.

“Play,” she ordered Bardon and the others who carried instruments with them. “Play one of those slow, haunting melodies.”

Pont pulled a piccolo from his breast pocket. “‘He Will Greet the Morning’?”

The others nodded. Captain Anton counted the tempo and raised his hand to begin their impromptu concert.

“I know the words to this one,” whispered N’Rae. She began to sing.

“He will greet the morning,

Because He will make each day.

Now He scatters the stars.

He covers the moon.

He draws the light in the blaze of the sun.

“Do not mourn the day’s end,

As the sun declines its realm.

Now He collects the stars.

He reveals the moon.

And He allows the sun to stay its course.

“He will greet the morning

And never restrain new light.

Now He governs the stars.

He directs the moon.

As He greets the morning, He orders our world.”

They repeated the entire song, then the musicians went on to other melodies. Granny Kye sat on a rock. N’Rae sat on the grass at her feet. Bromptotterpindosset, Holt, and the two boys chose to sit on smaller boulders closer to the cliff’s edge. In the distance, the dragons swooped, dove, and rose again as the sky deepened to purple.

When the dragons turned to shore and the musicians put down their instruments, Ahnek stood and watched Sittiponder get up.

“That was nice, but now we have to get everything ready in the dark,” said the practical o’rant lad.

Sittiponder grinned. “I’ll help you.”

“And I’m hungry.”

“Me too.” The blind tumanhofer turned away from the ocean’s roar. “Too bad those dragons didn’t catch us our dinner.” He scrunched his shoulders as the wind from Frost’s wingspan swept over them.

Sshplatt!

Sittiponder giggled.

“What is that?” Ahnek took two steps forward and peered at the ground. “It’s a strange fish. It’s flat, Sittiponder, and round, as big around as a todden barrel. Can’t tell what color it is in this light.”

Bardon walked over. He poked his hand in a slanted gill and hoisted up the three-foot-wide, disk-shaped fish. “It’s a smoothergill.” The fish wriggled, and Ahnek jumped away.

“Feel the skin,” Bardon said, holding the fish out toward the young o’rant.

Ahnek backed away, waving his hands in front of him.

However, Sittiponder came forward quickly, with his arm stretched out in front of him. In his haste, he bumped his friend as he passed.

“Hey!” said Ahnek.

“Sorry.” Sittiponder touched the fish and stroked its side. “It feels like it’s been oiled. I don’t feel any scales.”

The smoothergill gave an exhausted flap of its tail.

“Good eating,” said Bromptotterpindosset. “You want to learn how to clean it?”

Ahnek shook his head. “I have chores to do for Pont.”

“Wasn’t talking to you, boy,” the tumanhofer spoke gruffly. “Sittiponder, come with me.” The mapmaker took the fish from Bardon and strolled away with the young tumanhofer following.

“Do you think he can?” asked Ahnek. He took a step to follow his new comrade, but Squire Bardon stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“I’m sure he can,” he answered.

Bardon turned back to see N’Rae still standing near the edge of the cliff and gazing toward the western horizon. He walked to her side and put an arm around her shoulders. The Wizards’ Plume marked the sky with a bright starlike blaze followed by a short tail.

“We still have time,” he whispered and turned her to the camp. “Let’s go see what a smoothergill tastes like.”

They ate an hour later. The thick white meat of the smoothergill cooked well in a pan placed on rocks at the fire’s edge.

Jue Seeno chewed rapidly, her whiskers bouncing. “I admit I thought it would be greasy, but that oil seems to have fried away. Delicious!”

Sittiponder had only one small cut on his thumb from his first attempt to clean and fillet a fish. N’Rae wrapped his wound with a small, clean rag. He wore a huge smile as he ate.

The questing party rose early the next morning and flew all day with two stops to rest the dragons. In the evening they landed in a meadow surrounded by tall rock pines. Beside the campfire, Bardon remembered Kale’s story of her first battle with grawligs. He recounted the tale and held a rock pinecone for Sittiponder to tentatively explore with his fingertips. The weighty orbs had barbs that, once embedded, had to be cut out of fur.

The following night they reached an area populated by o’rants. Ornopy Halls had once offered shelter to Kale’s first questing party. Master Ornopy and his housekeeper, Mistress Moorp, welcomed them as Paladin’s emissaries.

As soon as Bardon crossed the threshold, he smelled Kale. Not that she was there. But a scent of citrus emanates from all o’rants’ skin. In this household of o’rants, the aroma floated on each current of air through every room.

He was well aware that his own emerlindian blood stifled the tangy smell rising from his pores. Ahnek needed several baths to erase the odor of the streets from his hide. Once or twice Bardon had caught a whiff of that identifying fragrance about the lad, but mostly Ahnek smelled of dirt and old sweat.

Bardon noticed Sittiponder’s nostrils quivering. He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s the fragrance of oranges, lemons, limes, and o’rants.”

“It’s nice,” the blind boy answered. “I like it.”

“So do I.”

They stayed two days, allowing the dragons to thoroughly rest. At midday on the third day, the small band of questers crossed the border into the Northern Reach. Stretching before them, miles of short, pale new grass rolled over the hills like a variegated carpet. For the most part, only shades of green and an occasional tree made up the landscape. But here and there, outbreaks of splendor spotted a monotonous stretch.

N’Rae exclaimed over patches of wildflowers that puddled the swells and hollows of earth with a melee of color. Bardon noticed the beauty only after the young emerlindian pointed it out. He then saw that Ahnek readily described the scenery to his blind comrade.

Dar would be chastising me if he were here, Greer…Guilty as charged. Again I’ve been focused on images in my mind of rivers too wild to be crossed, chasms too deep to fathom, and trails too twisted to follow, while Wulder has painted a picture to gladden my heart right in front of me…Yes, I know there are numerous principles to quote about the folly of the mind’s eye. You needn’t remind me…It would appear that Wulder Himself is doing a good job of reminding me, so you can relax in your duty to keep me in line.

They traveled more east than north at this point. Herds of wild animals scattered as the dragons flew overhead. Streams meandered through the steppes and joined a river crossing the plain. In the distance, mountains rose out of the plains. At the second rest stop for the day, Bromptotterpindosset, Bardon, and Captain Anton decided to make camp and study the charts.

The boys explored. Sittiponder held on to his walking stick and Ahnek’s arm. He ran as fast as the o’rant boy and listened intently as the sighted boy described each new wonder. Granny Kye got out her paints. Holt helped with a saddle sore one of the dragons had developed. N’Rae walked in circles around the camp.

Bardon kept an eye on the wandering boys and N’Rae. The lads stayed close, crossing and recrossing the same bit of land, discovering rocks, bushes, and animals that deserved inspection. N’Rae’s trail rounded the camp in ever-widening circles.

“Here’s where we are.” Bromptotterpindosset jabbed a stubby finger at the parchment unrolled on the ground and weighted by rocks. “And here,” he said, pointing to a page in the diary, “is the map that Cadden Glas sketched.”

“What does the writing say?” The squire crouched beside the sitting mapmaker to look at his book.

The tumanhofer pinched his upper lip between a finger and his thumb. “Hmm. Cadden Glas’s handwriting is sloppy, and when he got excited about something, it became a scrawl.”

“It all looks like random scratches to me.”

Bromptotterpindosset ignored him. “Luckily here, Glas is not disconcerted. He does butcher the meech verb forms, however. This says, ‘We traveled overland for ten days and reached our first view of the mountains.’ Actually, it says present tense
travel
and future tense
will reach.
”

“Does it say anything useful?”

The tumanhofer gave him a scathing look. “It lists the flora and fauna. I shall have to snag those two boys and compare his notes to what they have found.” He turned the page. “There are also sketches of the specimens he noted.”

A piercing scream lifted the hairs on the back of Bardon’s neck. He sprang to his feet and ran to the crest of a hill where he’d last seen N’Rae. The other riders and Holt scrabbled up the rise behind him.

A cluster of grawligs ran through a gully, splashing in the small stream that cut through the earth. Bardon paused only a moment to see N’Rae draped over the shoulder of one of the ill-clad ogres. The squire raced down the hill.

With powerful legs, the grawligs covered ground quickly. The knot of raiders disappeared around a corner of the deepening ravine.

Greer, cut these beasts off and herd them back toward us.

Mighty wings whipped the air above him, and the dragon’s huge shadow skated across the sloping bank. Keeping an eye on the rough terrain, Bardon charged toward the opening where N’Rae had been taken. He heard those following slip and slide as the crumbling soil broke away under their feet. He blessed his emerlindian agility.

A satisfied grin broke the serious expression on Bardon’s face as he heard a collective shout from the small ravine.

He stepped aside just as Greer warned him the horde had turned and was about to trample him.

The horrified beasts ran out of the opening to see a living wall—six warriors, armed and blocking their escape. They stopped short and started to turn.

Bardon jumped back onto their trail and yelled, “Eeeyah!”

Greer landed on the edge of the cutaway above them, peering over the cliff at the unfortunate, trapped ogres.

The grawligs shuffled, their massive heads swiveling as they realized they had no way out.

The beast carrying N’Rae abruptly dropped her. She sat up and straightened her skirts around her legs. Glaring at her captors, she remained where she was, with her arms crossed defiantly over her chest and her chin tilted in the air.

“No good.” The grawlig grunted and looked at those around him. They echoed his profound statement. “No good.”

The spokesman stepped over N’Rae and walked a few steps toward Bardon, who held his sword ready in his hand.

“We go,” said the grawlig. “No like woman. No like men. No like…that.” He pointed to Greer.

Greer sneered, his lip curled, and sharp teeth clicked against each other.

“Dragon,” said Bardon. “Do you not see dragons here?”

“We go.”

Bardon waved his sword. “No, you answer some questions. Do you not see dragons here?”

“High in sky.” The beast grunted. “Not belong on ground.” He puffed out his chest. “Ground belong to hunters.”