The Emerald Dragon (The Lost Ancients Book 3) (24 page)

Chapter Forty-One

We’d finally worked through most of the debris caused by the explosion. I tried not to think about how many relics had been destroyed when whoever or whatever set the explosion off.

There was an area that looked a little lighter than the rest. Still packed solid, so I didn’t think the explosion had gotten down that far, but light enough to indicate a magical find. One thing I’d found in my years of digging. Relics with magic seemed to lighten the dirt. Not all magical finds did it, but when I saw dirt like this it was always a magical find. I’d tried showing other diggers, but they never saw it. And telling Covey just brought a few very concerned looks. But I knew it was true for me at least.

Harlan was showing Covey and Orenda some shards of pottery he’d found. Most likely elven, possibly just refuse from the city.

I worked my way around the find, carefully using a small trowel, then my duster. The item was large and smooth. Odd for a relic, but there was definitely something there. After about a half hour I freed it. It wasn’t completely round but a large green oval about the size of Bunky. It wasn’t a dragon, but it was definitely the largest emerald I’d ever heard of.

I was about to turn and call the others over when I looked at it again. The image of a dragon appeared within the shape of the stone. Glorious and magically, it was as if it was alive. A wave of paranoia and greed flooded over me. This was mine. I could be unimaginably rich and escape from all the madness that had invaded my life. However, if I let anyone know about it, they would take it. The dragon nodded as if it heard my thoughts. I must hide it, keep it safe.

I glanced over my shoulder at my friends, but they no longer seemed like the faces I knew. They would take it from me, and stop me from getting the nice quiet life I wanted. They’d always been against me. Without another thought, I used the rope to climb up. My prize was wrapped up in my jacket and tucked into my clothing in such a way those people behind me shouldn’t be able to see it.

After making sure no one above the pit was looking, I ran deeper into the ruins and buried my prize. I could come back for it tonight and leave all these people behind.

I turned and walked back toward camp, and almost immediately felt completely foolish about what I’d just done. That was what we were looking for, it was why we were here. I needed to tell Covey and Harlan. I almost walked back to the pit when the tiny voice in my head told me to wait.

It was right. I could wait until tomorrow to tell them.

***

Two days later and I still hadn’t told them. I just wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it yet. I wasn’t sleeping well and was staying away from the others more and more. My dreams were filled with a giant green dragon, one that would appear and take me away from all of this once I gave him the emerald. But it also terrified me. I woke up ten or more times a night sweating and clutching my blankets so tightly my hands cramped up.

That day I was digging in the same area, hoping to find something I could show my friends, when Jackal stuck his head over the edge and bellowed at me.

“We have someone from the mayor who says he needs to talk to you. And only you.”

I waved him off, but he made as if ready to climb down the rope.

“Look, can’t you just deal with it?” I really thought today might be when I told the others about the emerald dragon. The urge not to speak of it was almost gone. As long as I ignored the dreams and didn’t get near where I’d hidden the damn thing.

“Not my call. He wants you. Come up so we can get this over with.” Jackal waited until I was out of the pit. He then motioned for me to walk back to camp ahead of him.

“I really don’t see why you needed to call me in for this, Jackal.” I waved my small spade over my head at him as he walked behind me. “I don’t need to talk to anyone who comes from town. You can handle it.” He knew I was leader in name only. We’d only been here a few days, but the mayor of Kenithworth had sent down visitors each day. Jackal had been fine dealing with all of the others. I had no idea why he had to pull me away from the site this time just to speak to someone.

Covey and Orenda were back at the site still getting their crash course from Harlan on the basics of digging. They both had thought they could observe and kibitz. But their “we’re the advisors” stance only worked for the guards from the city—not us. Harlan and I put an end to that. Even with them gone, Tag and the others still should have been in camp though.

The emptiness was surprising.

I was about to turn and ask Jackal what was going on, when Bunky came flying over our wagon and slammed right into the man. Jackal had been a lot closer to me than I’d thought, and must have been watching me instead of Bunky so the flying attack took him by surprise.

He fell back then reached for Bunky. Bunky made a furious noise, almost more roar than buzz and flew higher. I could tell he was going to dive at Jackal again. I was going to yell for both to stop it, when a bit of netting in Jackal’s right hand caught my eye. He was trying to capture Bunky.

“Bunky! Fly away! Leave!” I waved my hands at him and backed away from Jackal.

Bunky lowered his voice to his normal buzz, then, still staying far too high for Jackal’s net, he flew past me and over the table we all used. He buzzed louder until I came closer.

A pile of what I thought was swamp muck in a cage lying in the middle of the table turned out to be a mass of chocolate-covered, and completely passed out, faeries. My faeries. Even in the muck of the chocolate, it was clear they all had war sticks and bits of war feathers were sticking out of the mess. They were in a large cage most likely used for trapping fur animals.

There was no way that they would have had chocolate if they were mad enough to feather up. I hadn’t even known that the newer group of faeries had war feathers yet. Not to mention there had been no chocolate with anyone in camp and no one other than Harlan, Covey, Alric, and myself knew what it did to faeries.

“What did you do to them?” I kept my voice calm, but I reached for my dagger. I also waved Bunky to leave and this time he obeyed.

“What we had to do to keep them out of things. Jackal realized that they figured out what was really going on out here, and made us move up our timeline.” Alric came out from behind his wagon looking fully Carlon all the way down to his sneer. He also looked far healthier than he’d been prior to getting here.

I pulled back in shock and tried to step back so that I could keep an eye on both of them. Alric had betrayed the faeries? And me? Again? Clearly, he’d been the one who set up a chocolate trap for the girls. He and Jackal were counting on Bunky coming out of hiding when he saw me.

“What the hell is going on? Is Locksead sabotaging his own heist?” I kept slowly walking backwards, but I didn’t want to get too far from the faeries’ cage. Alric knew everything about them. If anyone might know how to seriously hurt, or possibly kill, them it would be him.

“Locksead is an idiot,” Jackal said as he tossed the net he was holding on the table. “He only thinks about what he can sell. Not what he can rule.”

I debated grabbing the cage and seeing how far I could get, but I had a feeling it wasn’t very far. Even so, I shifted my weight just enough for Alric to shake his head. “Grab her.”

I felt the hands grab my arms before I even knew anyone was behind me. I twisted back to see Markin give me a shrug. He didn’t look thrilled about grabbing me, but he also didn’t look like he would let go.

“You see, Taryn.” Alric came forward slowly and I saw the bastard had been drinking. A green bottle sloshed in his hand. “Some of us are tired of being the lackeys of the movers of the world. Some of us want to be in charge of our own kingdoms under a new and glorious destiny. And you are going to help with that by supplying the weapons we need. Not to mention the other benefits of joining us.” He leaned in very close to my face as if to kiss me and the smell of what he’d been drinking hit me. Dragon bane.

He looked me clearly in the eye and his eyes changed briefly from Carlon to Alric. “You were right, Jackal, I think she may need some convincing. Capturing her little flying rats isn’t enough.”

He made as if to pour some of the dragon bane down my throat, but strategically spilled it on me instead. I was grateful for that. Last two times I’d drank the stuff I started attacking any man around me, starting by ripping off their clothes. I was even more grateful that it appeared Alric hadn’t joined the bad guys, but was trying to throw off Jackal’s plan. Whatever that plan was I was sure I didn’t want to be part of it.

I yelled as he spilled the stuff on me. Squirming a bit to try and break Markin’s hold.

“Damn it, Carlon!” Markin swore and removed one hand from my arm as the sticky liquid got on him as well.

The dragon bane was starting to tingle when I pushed back at Markin and swung out with my dagger.

He dropped back faster than I’d expected so I only got a slice in his upper arm instead of a stab to the chest. But it was his dominant arm and thanks to my dagger training with Orenda I’d gotten in a fancy twist as I hit so it did more damage than it would have normally.

Alric stumbled away, supposedly going for the sword he used as Carlon. However, his fake drunk routine brought him right in Markin’s path and they both stumbled to the ground. Alric was still playing his role, still keeping the Carlon persona alive, but he was doing his best to interfere with Jackal’s plan.

The smell of dragon bane and the familiar burning hit the skin of my face and I leaned over to throw up. Not great in a fight, but I couldn’t hold it long enough to throw up on one of my attackers.

I spun around and charged Jackal. He was bigger than me, but stupidly unarmed, aside from a log he’d pulled out of the pile for the fire. He laughed at first, easily blocking my dagger. His laugh died as the dragon bane hit my system and my speed increased. I got in two serious stabs, sadly neither of them fatal, before a blow to my head took me out.

Chapter Forty-Two

I woke up with dirt in my mouth and no memory of what had happened. I kept my eyes closed as soon as I realized that my hands were tied behind me and I was lying on the ground. The dirt in my mouth was from a rag someone had shoved in there. As the buzzing in my head started to fade, I heard voices and everything came back to me.

“I don’t know why you say we need her.” Markin sounded far surlier than he had previously. “She’s not going along willingly, and she’s useless to us if she won’t cooperate.”

Jackal’s grunt was followed by a long swallow of liquid. “I can find a use for her, but she won’t like it.”

“Knock it off, both of you.” That was Alric. Or right now, very much Carlon. “You’re not going to rape our chance at having this work. If you break her, we will never get what we need. She can find the artifact and she will lead us to the rest of the weapon.” I heard his boots crunching gravel and fought to not flinch as he came closer. “She will cooperate. We have her friends and her faeries. I don’t have a problem killing any of them to make this work.”

He had to have seen me cringe; I felt the tip of his boot against my side. Nevertheless, he said nothing and walked away. I had to force myself to believe Alric hadn’t really betrayed us. However, he made it difficult. There were so many aspects to him that he never told me about. Too many to figure what the truth was.

“Fine. What the hell is taking the others so long? And where’s the rest of the team?” Jackal clearly hadn’t been too inconvenienced by my stabs. Unfortunately, whoever hit me from behind broke the spell of the dragon bane, and I doubted I could move that fast now.

“The trellian was too hard to fight, she got away.” One of Locksead’s men spoke, whose name I hadn’t bothered to learn. He grunted and walked closer to me. “But I got the cat.” Something heavy was dropped on my legs and I assumed he meant Harlan. Hopefully like me Harlan was of more value alive than dead.

I needed to find out who was behind this before they realized I was conscious. I knew the rakasa were after the emerald dragon, but I had a feeling their plans for it wouldn’t be sharing world domination with a bunch of thieves. That left the mayor as the instrument of my current situation. Whether he’d bribed Locksead’s men recently, or they were part of a bigger plan I had no idea. Right now, I needed to figure out how to break free, save Harlan and the faeries, and flee. Great. At least Covey was still free. Maybe Orenda was as well.

“Tag! Bring in that damn elf!”

My heart broke at that yell. More for the fact that Tag was working with these bastards than Orenda being grabbed, but there was a little bit about her as well.

“I have her, stop yelling.” There was a shuffle of feet. It sounded like Orenda was still conscious and walking in.

“Why ain’t she gagged?” Jackal said. “You know she won’t shut up.”

“I’ll have you know, my clan will find me no matter what you do. And they will destroy you.” Orenda sounded rattled but not scared. That was a good start. Just from what I’d seen during our trip she was a better fighter than most of the morons in camp.

“I told you what would happen if you kept talking!” Tag yelled then I heard a slap. Orenda was quiet.

“Gag that one, now.” A deep voice rumbled from the far end of the camp. “I think the digger girl is awake. Want me to check?”

My heart dropped at that voice. It was the syclarion guard who’d rode in from the city gates with us. Of course he was part of this; he and Jackal had been best friends the last few days. Booted feet told me the rest of the syclarion guard contingent had now joined us.

“You always break them when you check.” Another syclarion voice, this one was one of the guards from the gate. “Let one of the other people do it. We need her alive.”

I heard voices coming closer and I tried reaching out for anything. Magic. Leftover dragon bane strength. Anything. Nothing. I had nothing to grab. I hadn’t done any magic since we started this trip, so I couldn’t have over-taxed myself. However, there were no fire ants, no urges to throw up, no connection of anything even remotely magical for me to grab. It was as if I’d reverted to being a magic sink.

Hands flipped me from my side to my back, twisting me awkwardly since my legs were still pinned by an unmoving Harlan. I couldn’t fake it anymore, so I opened my eyes. Carlon stared back at me.

“She’s up, but she don’t look too good.” He roughly pulled me to my feet, pushing aside Harlan’s breathing but unconscious body as he did so. “We need some tea.”

I didn’t know who was more shocked at that, me or the gang of thugs surrounding us.

“This ain’t a tea party, boy.” That was the gate guard, with three of his men behind him. The others had taken positions around the edge of the camp. None of them were in armor, so that was a plus. Not that that mattered when it came to fighting syclarions. They didn’t need metal to make them damn hard to kill.

“I know it’s not.” Alric almost sounded like himself with his snarl. “It’s fatal to faeries and if she doesn’t start talking I’ll pour it all over them.” He pulled me around to where a pair of teakettles were left on the remains of the morning fire.

I was facing Alric, so my brief relief didn’t show to anyone else. I wasn’t sure how hyper faeries would help us, especially since we were extremely outnumbered. However, if it meant getting the girls out of here, I was all for it.

“Please don’t do that!” I worked on channeling Harlan’s acting buddies. “I’ll do what you want, just don’t do that.” I forgot my hands had been bound, so I automatically reached out for the tea and then realized my hands were untied. Alric had done it as he pulled me up and I hadn’t even noticed. My momentum unbalanced both of us for a moment, which still gave us the mostly desired result. A huge pot of cold tea poured all over the passed-out faeries.

I thought it hadn’t been enough, as not a single faery moved. Then the pile started moving and Garbage Blossom stood on top and gave a huge shake. I grabbed the second teakettle out of Alric’s hand and got as much of it onto and into the faeries as I could. At this point even Jackal had probably figured out tea wouldn’t kill them. Garbage was good. She got enough in her to start pulling at the other faeries. All of them started lapping tea off themselves like a bunch of kittens.

We were blocking the faeries’ cage from the others, but my throwing the contents of the second teakettle on them hadn’t been what should have happened, not to mention I was free.

“Grab her. Can’t you idiots do anything right?” The syclarion gate guard was clearly the leader of the group and started barking orders. I ran and dove under the table. Peering out from under it, I saw Tag toss a dagger to Orenda—clearly her hands had been freed as well—and arm himself with one. I flashed him a smile. I would never tell him I’d briefly believed he had betrayed us.

Most of our weapons were still inside our wagon, but I wasn’t sure how I would get to them. Alric was even further away from them than I was but was somehow still holding on to his Carlon persona as he drunkenly tried to chase me, then stumbled back to the faeries’ cage just as Garbage Blossom forced the door open. I rolled out from under the other side of table.

A dozen very messy and extremely pissed-off faeries flew into his face before the stench of the sewerweed he wore pushed them away. They weren’t moving like they would have if they had drunk all of that tea, but it had cleared the chocolate stupor off them.

I waved my hands at them to get their attention. “Get away from here!” They were focusing on attacking the people around them but I saw the guards pulling out crossbows. Right now the faeries couldn’t win, but they might be able to later. “Go find Bunky!” I still couldn’t feel anything magical, but I thought as hard as I could for them to leave, get help, then save us. I had no idea where they’d find help. Not with the closest city clearly under syclarion control.

Garbage whistled for the others, and they all circled the camp once, and then vanished.

One of the syclarions reached over to grab me, and Alric shot him with a crossbow.

Then all hell broke loose.

Covey charged into the clearing and jumped on the back of a syclarion guard. She had the garrote she’d borrowed from Orenda and found a way to make it work through that thick neck. Then she stabbed him through the heart a few times for good measure and jumped off as he tumbled to the ground.

Tag and Orenda both came out swinging and engaged another syclarion. I had to do something, so reached down for a sword lying near the table, and fought back. No idea where the sword came from, but I wouldn’t argue with plain luck.

We were massively outnumbered; all of Jackal’s men, except for Alric and Tag, were working with the syclarions. We were being cornered, as if they wanted us all alive. For now.

One of the syclarions got a lucky strike on Alric that could have killed him had he not blocked most of it. Okay, they wanted some of us alive.

I was about to surrender. I’d give them the emerald dragon, make them let the others go, then try to find a way to blow up the relic, the syclarions, and myself.

It was hard to hear over all of the fighting, but I thought I heard faery war cries. A fleet of flying snakes was heading our way. However, they were flying oddly. Then I realized it wasn’t a bunch of sceanra anam, but regular snakes, huge ones from the look of them, carried by a bunch of hyperactive faeries. Judging from their speed, I’d venture to say they went into town and found some more tea.

People were still fighting but the war cries and the hisses of the snakes were getting louder. I had a bad feeling about this. “Everyone, move away from the enemy. Now.”

The screams came once the faeries dumped their snakes onto all of the syclarions and Jackal’s men. Apparently, they were venomous. And equally apparent, even the thick skin of the syclarions wasn’t enough to stop these vipers.

My friends all moved a step or two away at my yell; if I didn’t know better I’d almost say they moved at the exact moment of my yell. Once the snakes were dropped they moved even further.

It took a few minutes for the snakes to kill whom they could. Then they vanished.

I looked around, but there wasn’t a single snake in sight. Nor any faeries.

Jackal and all of his men were down and their stiffness told me the snakes had gotten them.

Only three syclarions were left standing. They might not have gotten a full dose of the venom, but all the rest of the attackers had succumbed.

One started to run off, and Alric tore after him. We couldn’t afford to have the mayor know what happened and send more guards.

Orenda squared off against another one. She was pale, but she also looked pissed and still caught up in the fury of the fighting.

The last one was closest to me, I raised my newfound sword, but Covey charged forward and pushed me out of the way to face him.

Within a few minutes, both remaining syclarions had collapsed and weren’t ever getting up. Orenda started shaking, and Tag led her off to the steps of our wagon to sit.

I looked around at the carnage before us. There were seven syclarion bodies here. One was missing, the one Alric had chased. I waved to Covey, who was running the syclarions through with a sword in case any were faking it, and jogged in the direction that Alric had been running.

I had to go a little bit away from the camp, but I found a body. It wasn’t the syclarion. It was Alric, still holding onto his Carlon facade. I ran to him, but he was convulsing and a green froth was bubbling out of his clenched teeth.

He had a nasty looking sword wound on his left side, but I had a bad feeling that wasn’t what had actually taken him down. I ripped open his shirt. His entire chest was a mass of green ooze and blood. The wound from Glorinal was being helped by the injury he took fighting the syclarion. Together, they were killing him.

I wiped away the tears. I knew whatever Glorinal did was magical, but I had no way to know how to heal him. Whatever had blocked my magic vanished when the syclarions died. However, I didn’t know what spells to use. The only one who would know the spells was the man dying in my arms. Or maybe not.

“Orenda! Covey!” I knew Orenda had collapsed after the fight. But I needed her. I needed anyone and everyone to save Alric.

“Now! I need you now.” Sobs swallowed my voice as Alric’s chest started rattling. He was going to die and I couldn’t stop it.

“I’m here, what do you….” Orenda arrived first. She stopped running when she saw Alric.

I wiped the tears away again, and turned to her. “You need to heal him. Now. Save him, work whatever healer magic you have. But save him.”

She looked at me oddly. Even dying as he was, he was holding on to that damn glamour. Carlon’s passing shouldn’t be affecting me this much. I didn’t care. “I will explain later, just heal him.”

Covey and Harlan came running up as well, with Tag limping behind. I felt Covey and Harlan each grab one of my shoulders and squeeze.

Orenda looked at all of us, confusion clear on her face, but she dropped down next to Alric’s head. She closed her eyes and held her hands over his chest. After a moment she shook her head. “There’s nothing for me to hang onto. I simply don’t have enough magic to do what needs to be done.”