The Dragon's Lair (25 page)

For a long moment there was nothing but silence.

Then, from somewhere amid the grassy sea of twinkling lights, a voice called back in the same language. It sounded like a question, but a threatening one.

"I am carrying children and foodstuffs, nothing more," Tuck replied in the common tongue. "The children are not Lirin, they do not understand our words."

A harsh command was shouted in reply. Then another, which seemed to be directed at the fields of grass around them. The sparkling lights winked out.
Whoever is in command must have told them to hold their fire,
Ven thought.

The dark sea of grass swayed, then parted. Shadows of humanlike figures, tall and slender, appeared around the wagon. Ven could not make out their features in the moonless night. One of them stopped next to where the horses were hitched to the wagon.

He grasped the side of the wagon and shook it. The merrow sat upright and looked around, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Stand up, all of you," came the voice from the figure, spoken in the common language with a thin accent. "I advise you to keep your hands still."

At first the children remained frozen in place. Then, slowly, Ven stood and nodded to the others.

"If these are Lirin, why are they bein' unfriendly to
Tuck
?" Char whispered in Ven's ear as he rose beside him. The king's forester turned quickly and shot the boys a stern warning glance. Even though they could not see his face in the absolute dark, there was no mistaking the meaning.

The dark figure slowly began to circle the wagon. As it came closer to him, Ven could see it was a man with what appeared to be dark hair bound neatly back, carrying a long slender bow. He could see the whites of the man's eyes as they searched the front of the wagon. They came to rest on Amariel, who was still sitting, crouched behind some sacks of potatoes. The man stopped.

"Get up," he ordered.

The merrow looked at Ven. He nodded encouragingly. Slowly she obeyed, and rose unsteadily to her feet.

"Come here," the man said, indicating the side of the wagon.

The merrow shrank away.

"Come to the edge of the wagon," the man repeated.

Ven watched her nervously. He tried to smile to give her confidence, but the merrow did not seem comforted. Finally, she picked her way over the provisions and came to the side of the wagon.

The man stood and stared at her for a few moments. Then he turned away and continued making his rounds. Ven sighed in relief.

Until the man came to a sudden halt directly in front of him.

Ven shuddered. He wasn't certain why, but it seemed that the eyes were staring at him as if he were a monster in the dark.

"Nain!" the man shouted to the others in the wide, waving sea of highgrass.

Instantly the sparks of light flickered into life again.

"He is in my charge," Tuck began, but his words were drowned by the sound of dozens of arrows singing through the air and thudding into the wagon board on which the forester was standing.

"Silence!" commanded the shadowy figure, looking at Tuck. He turned again to Ven. "Come over here, Nain, and keep your hands where I can see them."

It never occurred to me that being Nain would put me, or my friends, in danger. Even when Tuck had left me out of the firefighting, no one else suffered because of what I was
.

I had experienced a few times when people did not treat me well because of my race. And my older brothers and sister, Matilde, occasionally told me stories of what it was like before I was born, when the humans in Vaarn teased them or even avoided them because they were Nain. Most of that ended the day Luther, my third oldest brother, bit off the thumb of Jimbly Toddsworth and spat it into the bay. Toddsworth was an obnoxious human boy who was bothering Matilde every day on her way home from school, and Luther is big and not all that bright. So when Jimbly wouldn't stop, after repeated warnings from Petar and Osgood, Brothers One and Two, Brother Number Three reacted the only way he knew how
.

I guess they are right when they say Number Three is the charm
.

Anyway, after that, no one really bothered my family very much. By the time that I, Brother Number Twelve, the thirteenth child, came along, we had been treated normally for many years, so I never knew what racial prejudice felt like until I came to Serendair
.

Now it seemed I was about to discover how bad it can really be
.

The king had warned me that the Lirin and the Nain didn't get along too well. I guess I assumed that wouldn't apply to me. But now that I was standing in the dark in a wagon, surrounded by Lirin who seemed a little less than pleased to see me, I knew how foolish I was to assume anything like that
.

If I survive, I will have to make a note to avoid that assumption in the future
.

"Ven," Tuck said quietly, "don't you have something to say to these men?"

Ven swallowed hard. "I-I'm Nain, yes, but a peaceful one," he stammered. "I mean you no harm—"

His sentence was choked off as the dark shadow seized him and dragged him out of the wagon.

The world swam before his eyes as his head hit the side of the wagon. Ven could hear the gasping of his friends as he thudded to the ground. All the air was knocked from his lungs. He found himself momentarily staring at the dark clouds racing along the black sky above him, knowing that his head was about to ring with pain as the shock wore off. Just as it started to, he was flipped onto his face in the grassy earth, his hands tied quickly behind his back.

From what seemed like far away, he heard Tuck's voice calling urgently.

"Please! Let him speak! Ven, can you hear me?"

Ven's ears were barely working as he was dragged to his feet. He could tell that he was in the clutches of many men now, roughly tying him and beginning to stuff a gag into his mouth.

"Ven! What were you told to say?"

Over the pounding of his head, Ven struggled to make sense of the forester's words. He tried to concentrate, but his brain felt loose and wobbly. He tried to think back to the moment he had met Tuck, the beginning of what was turning out to be a nightmarish journey.
What was the king thinking, sending us out like this into the eastern lands?
he wondered, trying to hold onto consciousness.
Surely this is even worse than being chased by the spies of the Thief Queen
.

At the thought of the king, the memory came to him. He turned his head quickly away to avoid the gag.

"I-I am the herald—" he began.

His words disappeared as a heavy cloth was shoved roughly into his mouth.

"Let him speak!" he could hear Tuck insist as he began to black out again. He struggled to breathe as Tuck's words returned to the Lirin tongue.

A moment later, the gag was pulled from his mouth.

"Speak," growled the dark man.

Ven spat out a wad of spit, coughing, and drew a deep, ragged breath. His heart was beating hard in his chest.

"I am the herald of—His Majesty," he began, "Vandemere, high king of Serendair." The air in his lungs ran out, and he took another painful breath.

"Keep going," the forester said.

"And as such I—claim his—
protection
." Ven pushed out the last word before everything went dark around him. He was vaguely aware of the highgrass around his forehead as he fell forward on his knees.

He remained there, breathing shallowly and trying to regain full consciousness as the Lirin voices began talking again in their strange, musical language. It was the last thing he remembered before the darkness took over, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next thing he knew, Tuck was shaking him gently by the shoulder. It seemed as if almost no time had passed.

"Is there more?" the Lirin forester asked quietly.

"Hmmm? What?"

"Did the king give you any instruction past claiming his protection?"

"Yes. Why? What's happening?"

"Don't try to move," Tuck said. "Lie still and listen." His voice was soft. "We have come across a large patrol of Lirindarc soldiers, forest dwellers who do not often leave the woods. They are guarding the fields above the northernmost edge of the Enchanted Forest, a place they normally do not roam."

"Is that why they are so unfriendly? Because they are a different kind of Lirin than you are?"

"They are Lirindarc, but generally they get along well with Lirinved. I am not sure why they are so hostile. But I actually think they are more angry about your presence than mine. When the Lirin feel threatened, they are suspicious of all Nain, as the Nain are of Lirin."

Ven thought back to his father's shipbuilding shop in Vaarn, where he had occasionally waited on Lirin.
Best type of customers to have,
his father had once said of them.
Respectful, courteous, don't talk much, honest, always pay on time, and expect high-quality work. Welcome in our shop anytime
. He rubbed his eyes.
How different things are here from my home
.

"Why are they so angry and suspicious?" he asked.

"It's a question of broken trust. I can't speak for the Nain, obviously, but the Lirin dislike and distrust the Nain for breaking faith, for shattering the trust that was between them long ago. It means that Lirin born long after that breaking of faith still resent it, even though it occurred in another lifetime, and hate the Nain for it.

"Your claim of the king's protection is being checked out while we wait," Tuck continued. "A group of messengers have been sent out. I don't know to whom they have gone—probably a local commander or perhaps the forest warden inside the tree line. But whoever it is, I hope he or she believes you, because if not, we may be parting company here. It's their intent to imprison you as a Nain spy. If that happens, what do you want me to do with your friends?"

Ven shook his head, trying not to vomit.

"I don't have any idea," he said. "If they let you go, I guess you should take them back to the castle, all except Amariel. You've got to get her—well, if you take her to the Inn, Mrs. Snodgrass will know what to do with her." He fell silent, realizing that without the cap, Amariel would never be able to return to the sea.

Tuck nodded.

"I hope King Vandemere will be kind to the others," Ven whispered. "Maybe he can get Clem back home, and find Char a spot on a ship—"

"Do not get ahead of yourself," Tuck said. "Wait and see what the puzzle is before you try to solve it."

"Are the others all right?"

Tuck nodded again. "They are very nervous, but at least they're not fighting."

"That's good," Ven said, trying to remain calm. "All that fighting was my fault—Nain are good at causing conflict. Back in Vaarn, my brothers say good morning by kicking each other off the wharf."

Tuck smiled. "Try and stay quiet. We are still surrounded by as many archers as you have hairs on your head. There is nothing else to do but wait."

"Can I go back to the wagon?" Ven asked. "I want to make certain my friends are all right."

Tuck put the question to the all-but-invisible guards in their strange language, and received a reply a few moments later. The highgrass parted, and another shadowy guard appeared next to Ven.

"Keep your hands high in the air," Tuck advised. "Do not give them any reason to use their tracer arrows."

They don't seem to need much of a reason,
Ven thought as he made his way through the grass and back to the wagon.
They shot the wagon board just because they heard a Nain was inside. I'd hate to think what they'd do if we gave them a
real
reason
.

He opened the gate in the back and climbed in.

"Shhh," he said as his companions flinched nervously. "It's just me."

"Is anybody aiming at you?" Ida asked. "If so, sit as far away from me as you can."

"Not that I know of," he replied. "But it's always possible."

"It's always possible with
you
, Ven," Clem said pointedly. "I'm trained to be a curate, for goodness sake. I'm supposed to be respectable. If my pastor knew how many times I've been under arrest or at the point of an arrow since I've known you, he would call me home in a heartbeat—or fire me."

"People certainly do seem to get set on fire a lot around here," Amariel said.

"Shut up," said Ida. "You should talk, with your ugly neckscars and your jagged teeth. You look like you barely survived a fire yourself."

"I didn't mean to be disrespectful," said the merrow. "I apologize." Ven shuddered at the softness of her voice, the lack of spirit in it.

From the darkness of his corner of the wagon, Char sighed.

"Stow it, all of you," he said. "What's goin' on
now
, Ven?"

"We're waiting to see whether they are going to arrest me as a spy or not."

"Oh joy," said Clemency. "And if they do, what's going to happen to
us
?"

Before Ven could answer, a shout went up from the wide grassy fields. The wagon lurched forward, causing the children to fall over like clothespins popping off a line that is snapped.

"I guess we're about to find out," said Char.

The wagon rumbled over the bumpy ground, slowly following the moving waves of highgrass. Ven could sense that the Lirindarc soldiers were closer around them now, even though he still could not see them in the moonless night.

The merrow looked over the side of the wagon, then up into the sky and shuddered.

"In the sea, we never travel when the moon is gone," she whispered to Ven. "It's like a shark traveling without a pilot fish—not a good idea. It's so easy to get lost when the world is so big, and so dark."

"Why are you two always whispering?" Clem demanded. "If you have something important to say, it might be nice to share it. And if it's not important, it's probably not worth risking us getting shot."

As if to punctuate this point, the fields to both sides of the wagon lit up with streamers of fiery light. A volley of arrows thudded into the long sides of the wagon, causing the children to jump, then settle into anxious silence.