The Dragon's Lair (24 page)

Ven shuddered. "Not yet." He withered at the look on Char's face. "I told you—give me some time with the others, please? It's not my secret to tell—or yours."

"Well, if you want their help in findin' her cap, you may have to do some things you don't wanna do."

"I know," Ven said. "Let's go back.

Inside the wagon, the silence was deafening. Ven cleared his throat and apologized, but no one responded. He asked again if anyone had seen the red pearl cap. but the girls were sitting with their backs to the middle of the wagon, looking out over the sides.

Away from him.

Ven sighed and sat down in the corner. "I'm sorry I accused you, Ida—" he began.

"Shut up, Polywog."

"Drop it, Ven," Clem said. "I'll try to talk to her later. Leave it alone for now."

"I'll search the wagon," Char said.

"Are you ready to go back there?" Tuck asked from the wagon board.

A quiet chorus of
yes, sure, yeah
, answered him.

Tuck picked up the reins and nickered to the horses.

"Good," he said. "Because the ravens are back, just beyond the horizon, and the fire I'm smelling is growing stronger.
And
it lies directly in the path of where we are going."

"
Fire
?" the companions asked in unison.

Tuck said nothing, but continued to drive. The team clopped along until the wagon reached the top of a high swale. The forester dragged the horses to a stop.

"Ven, you might want to look at this," he said.

Ven rose from the corner of the wagon bed and made his way past the others to the front. He looked over Tuck's shoulder and gasped.

The field below the top of the swale was scorched, smoldering still. A great rip in the earth lay open like a gaping wound.

And just beyond it, great letters as tall as the roof of the Crossroads Inn, were burned into the hillside.

SCARNAG
.

"I guess he knows you're coming, Ven," said Tuck.

17
From Bad to Worse

V
EN WAS DREAMING OF FIRE PIRATES CHASING HIM THROUGH THE
hold of a dark ship when he felt his shoulder being shaken.

He opened his eyes. He could see nothing but inky blackness all around him.

They were sleeping in the open because the glade in which Tuck had sheltered the horses was too small for the rest of them. The crescent moon had set, taking any light with it. The stars that had been so bright the evening before had disappeared behind racing clouds. All he could feel was the breath of the wind, rustling the grass around his head.

It smelled like the burned porridge in the bottom of Char's cooking pot.

"Get up," Tuck said quietly. "It's time to go."

Ven sat straight up and looked around. He could see the shapes of his friends beginning to move as they, too, shook off sleep. He knew they could see even less than he could.

"What's burning?" he asked nervously.

Tuck's voice came from behind where he sat. Ven had not seen him move.

"Fields," the Lirin forester said. "The grasslands to the north of here, I'd wager. I'm surprised you're not used to the smell by now."

"Is it the dragon?"

Tuck came around in front of him and crouched down. "Maybe. If it is, this fire has caught and spread from a spark. But this itself is not from the beast. Can't miss the smell of dragon's breath."

"Wh—why?" Char stammered from the darkness next to Ven. "What does it smell like?"

The forester was helping Amariel to her feet. He turned and looked at Char for a moment, thinking.

"There's a dirt smell to it, like wet firecoals," he said at last. "But sharper, like acid or pitch has been poured into the smoke. Once you've smelled it, you never forget it. It haunts your dreams."

"Great," Ven muttered. "My dreams aren't haunted enough."

"Let's move out," Tuck said, hoisting his enormous pack onto his shoulder. "The night-hunting ravens sleep when the moon goes down. Those that hunt by day will be up with the sun again. We have to travel fast."

Ven slung his own pack onto his back, as did the others. They followed Tuck's dark outline over the fields, stepping through the highgrass that billowed like waves on the sea.

After what seemed like an eternity of wading through endless scrub, they came to the thicket where the horses stood, the wagon hidden among the trees. Tuck tossed his pack into the back of the wagon and helped the children in, then climbed up onto the seat board and took the reins.

"Go back to sleep," he said over his shoulder.

"Yeah,
that's
gonna happen," Char said under his breath.

"May as well rest while you can," Tuck replied. Char jumped. He had forgotten how sensitive the forester's ears were. "Not a good idea to deal with a dragon when you're tired. We're not far from some of the Nain settlements now."

"I, for one, don't think it will be hard to fall asleep at all," said Clem, shoving aside a sack of cornmeal and moving away from the water barrel, which had leaked a little and dampened the floor of the wagon. "I feel like I could sleep for days."

Not me,
Ven thought. His scalp was on fire, his fingers tingling. It was all he could do to keep from peering over the edge of the wagon, but Tuck's warning was still ringing in his ears, drowning out his curiosity for the moment.
Stay down, children. It's best that anything passing by thinks you are cargo, nothing more
.

Surrounded by blackness, his mind was racing. He tried to think of home, of his family, of boring lessons in school, anything to get his thoughts to settle down and allow him to fall asleep again.

Inside his shirt pocket, the thin sleeve of Black Ivory vibrated slightly. Ven put his hand on top of it and was surprised that he could feel warmth, even through the fabric. There was a pleasant buzz in his skin, even through the smooth stone. Without thinking, he slid the tip of the dragon scale out of the protective sleeve and ran his finger over the edge.

The rim of the scale was so finely tattered that it felt as soft as flax, but I knew that if I pressed too hard it would slice through my skin to the bone. There was a hum that tickled my fingertip, a feeling of old magic that shot through me, all the way to the roots of my hair, to my toenails as well. Even the two whiskers on my chin vibrated
.

In that magical buzz there was a sense of joy. That's really the only word I can think of to describe it. Just touching something so ancient, so magical, made me feel good all over
.

Even in the scary darkness, even running from those who sought us by night and those that would return with day's light, I was excited
.

At least I was until someone grabbed my throat
.

All the breath choked out of Ven. His head spun woozily and he felt sick as he was hauled out of the wagon and up onto the board behind the horses.

Tuck's voice spoke quietly in his ear, its tone deadly.

"Put that bloody thing away, Ven. Do you
want
the dragon to find us?"

"N—no," Ven whispered.

Tuck's grip on his collar tightened. "Well,
I
can feel it when you pull it out of the Black Ivory—it vibrates so strongly that my teeth sting. So if
I
can feel it, don't you think a
dragon
can? Perhaps from miles away?"

"Sorry," Ven said. He pushed the scale back into its envelope, and the envelope back into his pocket. The vibration vanished, taking with it the joy that had been coursing through him a moment before.

Tuck shook his head in disgust and released his grip on Ven, who slid off the board and clattered back into the wagon. The eyes of the other children were wide, staring at him in the darkness, even Amariel, who smiled at him after a moment. Ven's face flushed hot in embarrassment, so he turned around and settled back down between two sacks of carrots, pretending to sleep.

Great
, he thought.
I've just annoyed the king's forester, frightened
my friends, and possibly alerted the dragon to our presence. I wonder if carrying around this dragon scale is making me more stupid than usual
.

He sighed miserably. Not since he had been floating on the wreckage of his father's ship after the Fire Pirate attack had he felt so vulnerable. The edges of the night seemed to be endless, especially when the moon was down. It was a little like being lost at sea, without the safety of the Crossroads Inn to return to.
What have I done, bringing my friends out here, with no settlements around for miles?
he thought.
If something happens to Tuck, how will we ever get home?

He raised himself up a little and glanced back over his shoulder. The wind was growing stronger, battering the wagon and blowing the children's hair and the manes of the horses wildly about. Behind him Clem was shivering, even though the night was hot. The Mouse Lodge steward pulled her woolen cloak closer around her shoulders.

Just as she did, Ven caught sight of a tiny flicker of light in the fields behind her.

He sat up and peered over the side of the wagon behind the girls. The tiny light had vanished, but suddenly several more winked in the moving sea of highgrass.

Ven spun and looked out the side of the wagon next to him. At first he saw nothing but blackness, but after a moment the little lights appeared within the meadow grass there as well, a few at first, then several more, and finally dozens of them, only to disappear as quickly as they had come.

He reached over the sacks of carrots and grabbed Char by the sleeve.

"Look out there," he said, trying to keep his voice low. "What
is
that?"

The cook's mate scooted closer to the edge and peered through the slats in the wagon.

"What's what?"

"Those flickering lights—can't you see them?"

"Blimey, I dunno," Char whispered. "Hey, Clem, come 'ere, quick!"

The house steward raised her head sleepily. "Huumm?"

"Come an' look at this," Char insisted.

An annoyed snorting sound came up from the depths of the wagon. "All
right,
just a minute." The sacks of carrots wiggled as Clemency crawled over them, looking less than pleased. "What do you want
now
?"

"There's about a bajillion tiny flickering lights out there," Char whispered.

Clem looked over the side of the wagon and stared into the dark.

"Fireflies," she said. "Lightning bugs. You've never seen them before?"

"Never
heard
of 'em," Char replied as Ven shook his head. "
Lightning
bugs?"

"It certainly is obvious that you grew up on the sea, Char, and you in a city, Ven," Clem said. "Anyone who's ever been in the countryside knows about lightning bugs. You can see them all over the fields where I live, mostly in the summer."

A soft cough came from the board of the wagon.

"Those are not lightning bugs," Tuck said quietly. The children looked at each other. Again the king's forester had heard them over the rattling of the wagon, the clopping of the horses, and the howl of the wind, even though they had been whispering.

Ven raised himself onto his knees. "What are they, then, Tuck?"

The forester clicked reassuringly to the horses, who had begun to nicker nervously.

"They're the points of tracer arrows," he said.

Ven looked out over the side of the wagon again. For as far as he could see around him in the highgrass were thousands of twinkling lights, glittering like the stars above the sea at night. They winked in and out, not moving, hovering in the scrub. He turned to Clem and Char, whose faces were as white as the moon had been.

"Tracer arrows?" he repeated.

The Lirin forester nodded, urging the horses forward, though the wagon had slowed.

"Arrows whose points have been dipped in a kind of concoction that glows in the dark. They only glow when they are just about to be fired, sparked by being drawn across a bow string. Their radiance lasts long enough to leave a path of light for others to see, so that the target is easier to hit.

"And behind each one is an archer."

18
The Lirindarc

D
ON'T MOVE
,"
TUCK SAID QUIETLY
. "
OR SPEAK
."

Slowly the Lirin forester stood up on the wagon board, allowing the wagon to roll to a smooth stop in the darkness.

He didn't have to remind us. I kept my head steady, but I could feel my eyes darting around in it like birds that had just taken flight. My companions were frozen as well. Char and Clem, who were sitting next to me, had backs as straight as broom handles
.

The only one I couldn't see was Amariel, because she was asleep
.

Tuck waited until the wagon had stopped completely, then spoke aloud in a language Ven didn't recognize. It was musical and pretty, but had a sharp edge to it, not the harsh sound of the language his family spoke in their home, but crisp and biting, like the sound of the wind.
The Lirin tongue
, he thought.