Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) (41 page)

Qaliah bounced in her saddle like
a boggin at a roast, excited at the prospect of visiting a new city. Gisella
hoped the lure of decadence there did not land the fiendling in trouble. Once
they paid their way on a ship and boarded, they would be months without
landfall. If they were being chased by the law, there would be nowhere to run.

* * *

The nailtooths’ sharp claws,
ill-suited for the trail through the foothills, slipped on the smooth, sheer
stone. The jagged peaks of the Iron Gate Mountains lay ahead, but the road was
already treacherous and rocky. Delilah feared they would be forced to turn
their mounts loose and proceed on foot.

They continued onward, albeit slowly.
By midmorning, Katka lost her grip on a scrabbling Taavi and fell. Kali
maintained her death-grip hold as the lizard leaped and scratched at the
stones. When Taavi finally found her footing, Kali slid out of the saddle and
helped Katka to her feet.

“They’re having a hard time,
Deli.” Kale hopped off Blackclaw and helped Kali steady her mount.

Delilah dismounted Fang. “Turn
them loose.” She rubbed Fang’s neck as she unbuckled the lizard’s harness.

“Only take what you need off of
them; leave the tack and saddles.” Katka drew her wand. “I have an idea. Kale,
Kali, gather our things from the lizards. Delilah, do you have any parchment
and ink? I’ll write a note explaining that we’re all right and need someone to
tend our mounts.”

Delilah rummaged through her
saddle bag for a piece of parchment and found a stick of charcoal. She handed
the implements to Katka. The young woman scribbled the message. When she
finished, Katka pulled the three nailtooths together at the edge of the trail.
She rolled up the note and secured it on the pommel horn of one of the lizards.

Green tendrils formed at the tip
of her wand. She tapped each lizard in turn with the glowing tip. “
Zoe’oh
goe’tia
.” Wisps of emerald aether swirled around each Nailtooth’s head. “Go
to the Cervenak farm. They will feed and care for you. Run swiftly!”

The three lizards hissed and
chirped and then bounded down the mountain. Katka put away her wand. “My
parents have space at their farm. We’ll probably need to pay them something for
boarding and feeding them when we return, but it’s better than setting three
Nailtooth lizards loose in the western farmlands.”

Delilah nodded in appreciation
and squeezed Katka’s arm. “Good thinking.” A flash of light near the bottom of
the trail caught her eye. “Did you see that?”

“What?” Katka peered in the
direction Delilah pointed.

“I thought I saw a flicker or a
flash. Down there, at the bottom of the trail.”

Kale and Kali joined Katka, but
also saw nothing. After searching every nook and cranny visible from their
vantage point, Delilah was forced to admit nothing was there.

“Keep your eyes open, though, all
right? There’s something funny about this whole business. It wouldn’t surprise
me one bit if we’re being followed.”

“By who?” Katka brushed her hair
out of her eyes. “The archduke or the archmage?”

“Either. Both.” Delilah shrugged.
Perhaps she was just being paranoid. “Who knows? Let’s get going.”

* * *

The wind howled, whipping Kali’s
cloak into Kale’s face. He grunted and pushed it away before glancing over his
shoulder at his sister. His fingers ached from gripping the rocks as he
climbed. “Maybe the archduke and the archmage are just trying to get rid of
us.”

“I don’t know about the archduke,
but I could believe that of the archmage. I’m glad to be away from him, though,
so I don’t really care.” Delilah pulled herself up onto a ledge alongside her
brother. “After this is done, I plan to spend as much time as I can decoding
those runes on that moon gate thing we found. It’s important, Kale. I know it.”

Kale grabbed his sister’s
shoulder. “No, I mean, they’re trying to get us killed. These giants aren’t
going to listen to us.” He regarded Kali and Katka below them. “Three draks and
a human? I’ve been thinking about it, Deli. They’re going to smash us to pulp
and grind our bones to dust.”

Kale learned everything he knew
about giants from listening to minotaurs and oroqs trade stories in Drak-Anor.
Kazi and Meriz could tell him nothing about their own kin; the two-headed giant
cared only for three things: smashing, sleeping, and eating. Nothing in the
stories led him to believe any giant would look upon a drak more charitably
than it would a human. If these giants behaved like the ones in the stories or
Kazi and Meriz, they would be eager to dispose of any draks who invaded their
homes.

He clambered up onto the ledge,
offered his sister a hand up, and then waited for Kali and Katka. Titan’s
Staircase was a winding series of cut-rock ledges leading away from the main
trail. According to Delilah’s information, it led directly to the giant’s
valley.

“We should cut and run while we
have the chance.” Kale didn’t want to risk antagonizing a city full of draks,
minotaurs, and humans if something went horribly wrong with their visit to the giants.
Pancras should be here. He should be doing this.

Katka huffed and puffed as she
sat on the ledge. “Can we take a breather? I’m not used to this much climbing.”
She shaded her eyes and gazed at the mountains behind them near Muncifer. “Wow,
I’ve never been this high up.”

Kale stood next to her, hands on
his hips. “Quite a view. Sort of reminds me of home. It almost makes you forget
why we came up here, huh?” He always enjoyed the view overlooking the Celtan
Forest from his vantage point in Drak-Anor, but those were the Dragon Spine
Mountains. These, the Iron Gate Mountains, were rockier, with more jagged
peaks.

“Do you really think there’s a
dragon sleeping under these mountains?” Kale rubbed the mark on his chest left
by Terrakaptis. It was mostly faded, but the edges still felt raised under his
fingers. He figured dragons would sense it, regardless. If what Delilah told
him was true, the mark would prove beneficial.

The young woman faced him. “I’d
love to see a real dragon up close.”

“Too bad Terrakaptis couldn’t
bring us, huh, Kale?” Delilah sat next to Katka. “We’d be finished with all of
this business and back home by now.”

“Who’s Terrakaptis?” Katka
flicked a pebble off the edge of the cliff and watched it fall. “Another wizard
from Drak-Anor?”

“Do you want to tell her, Kale?”
Delilah grinned at her brother.

“You two are awful!” Kali paced
behind them.

“Terrakaptis is a Firstborne, the
Earth Dragon, son of Rannos and Gaia.” Kale put his arm around Katka’s
shoulders and swept his free hand across the horizon, as if to show the young
woman the world for the very first time. “His lair is at the base of the world
tree at Drak-Anor.”

Katka’s eyes widened, and she
gasped. Kali smacked Kale on the top of his head. “Don’t tease her.”

“What? It’s true!” Kale rubbed
the top of his head as he regarded his mate.

Delilah scooted away from the
edge and stood. “All right, let’s go. We have to be nearing the trail by now.
This mountain isn’t going to climb itself.”

Kale wished his wings were strong
enough to fly them all up to the next ledge. For a giant, these were little
more than steep stairs. He supposed they did a fine job keeping all the shorter
peoples of Calliome away from their village, though. Upon reflection, his
sister’s decision to send their mounts away was the correct one. The nailtooth
lizards would never have been able to climb here.

The setting sun warmed their
backs as they reached the top of the Titan’s Staircase. A short trail led to
the crevasse marked on their map. Deep shadows gave the impression they entered
a cave, despite the clear sky above. Strange markings on the walls of the
fissure reminded Kale of claw marks, like the idle scratchings Terrakaptis made
as he paced back and forth and regaled Kale with stories of ages past. In the
distance, he heard a faint roar, like water cascading down a steep course of
rocks.

Delilah and Katka gasped as the
crevasse opened up into a valley. At the far end, water plummeted from a series
of falls into a lake. A group of skin-and-stone huts at one end of the lake
matched the location of the village on the map. From their position, the huts
appeared to be typical dwellings. Smoke drifted up in lazy ribbons from their chimneys,
and people scurried about, visible from across the valley. Carved out of one of
the cliff walls near the lake stood a citadel, a stone fortification that, even
at this distance, dwarfed the monolithic structures of the giants.

At the overlook, they took a
moment to gaze across the top of a pine forest and contemplate a scene as far
removed from the politics of Muncifer as the moons were removed from Calliome.
The trumpeting bellow of an animal drew their attention to the trail before
them. A long-necked creature emerged from the forest, its legs the diameter of
trees themselves. It was a giant, grey-skinned creature, upon which sat an
equally giant man. He held a spear aloft, ready to hurl it at the first sign of
aggression from the invaders to his home.

The giant was clad in leather and
furs, with plates of stone serving as greaves and pauldrons. Kale glanced at
his bandoleer of daggers and realized if there was a fight, fleeing would be
his only option.
Their skin is probably thicker than the blades of any of my
daggers!

“Draks! Human! You will come no
farther. This place is forbidden to you!”

Delilah motioned for everyone
else to remain still and stepped forward. She crossed her arm over her chest
and bowed. “Our mission is one of peace. Archduke Fyodar of Muncifer wishes to
clear up the recent misunderstandings.”

The giant flicked the top of
Delilah’s staff with the tip of his spear, sending her focus clattering across
the path. “You come bearing magic. The archduke has a strange idea of peace. We
know what the archmage did to our envoys.”

“But the archduke does not agree
with the archmage. He sent us to speak to you about Pyraclannaseous.” She
peeked over her shoulder at her brother and waved him forward. The giant’s
spear swung around to point at Kale.

“I come bearing a message from
Terrakaptis, the Earth Dragon, for Pyraclannaseous.” Kale stepped forward,
pulling down his bandoleer to give the giant an unobstructed view of the
markings seared into his chest. He hoped Delilah’s plan worked. The giant’s
spear was long enough to skewer him before he’d have a chance to dodge it.

He considered Kale and Delilah’s
words and then pulled back his spear. “You will wait here. I will return.” The
giant coaxed his mount to turn and stomped off into the forest.

Delilah’s shoulders slumped as
she released her breath. She sat down on a nearby boulder. “Now we wait.”

* * *

As dawn broke over the valley,
mist kissed the tops of the trees. Throughout the night, Delilah neither saw
nor heard any sign of the giants, though the firelight from their village
winked across the valley. She was tempted to ignore the giant’s warning and
proceed into the valley on her own. Surely, three draks and a small human would
pass unnoticed in the dense forest.

She readied her pack and prepared
to lead her friends to the giant village. A distant stomping noise, growing
closer with each stomp, alerted Delilah to the giant’s return. The giant who
visited them the previous day emerged from the trees riding his massive,
long-necked beast.

“I am to take you to the Citadel
of Fire and Stone.” He reached behind him and pulled a rope. A ladder unraveled
from the basket behind his saddle. “You will ride with me.”

Katka gawked at the giant and
whimpered. Delilah touched her arm for reassurance as she passed the human girl
and climbed the ladder. The beast’s skin felt leathery and cool to the touch.
Its texture felt like pebbles on the shore of a lake.

Delilah gripped the top of the
basket’s wall and peered over the side. “Well, come on up. Best to get this
over with.”

Kale climbed up next, followed by
his mate, and Katka, bringing up the rear. Delilah helped the human girl over
the edge. They all gasped and fell into a pile as the giant clicked his tongue,
and the beast lumbered in a circle and headed into the forested valley. The
giant’s massive hands reeled up the ladder, and he twisted around to secure it.
The basket on the creature’s back pitched and bounced with each step, abating
only after they reached the relatively level floor of the valley.

The canopy of the forest, lush
and thick, shrouded the valley floor in darkness, allowing only scant rays of
light to pass through. In the distance, Delilah heard a wolf howl, and as the
giant creature tromped through the forest, the swaying basket lulled her to
sleep, despite her efforts to remain awake and remember their path.

Delilah awoke to her brother
kicking her leg from across the basket. “Wake up, Deli! We’ve arrived.”