The Great Tree of Avalon (22 page)

Amazing! What a thrill . . . They could be strolling one moment as men and women—then leaping the next as stags and does. According to the tales, the one great love of Merlin’s life, Hallia, was herself a deer woman. And though their child, the famous explorer Krystallus, couldn’t shift into a deer, the bards always held out hope that some later descendant might bear the magical blood.

I hope so
, thought Tamwyn as he loped along, following a dry streambed.
I do hope so! Then the deer people from Merlin’s old world might exist again . . . right here in Avalon.

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, even as he jumped to the other side of the streambed to catch the scent of a juniper bush, its twisted boughs dotted with tiny blue berries. But for that to be true, Krystallus must have had a child. And though he’d heard many stories about the fearless explorer from his mother, from villagers, and from wandering bards—stories that told how Krystallus became the first person ever to find portals to all Seven Realms, the only man to reach the Great Hall of the Heartwood and return alive, the first human to dare to visit the flamelons after the War of Storms—none of those stories said anything about Krystallus fathering a child.

A scrawny little bird shot out of the sky and barely missed Tamwyn’s nose. He wrenched aside, almost stepping in a marmot’s hole. Then he stopped and turned to the bird, who had spun around and started to dive at him again.

What are you doing, you fool bird?
Just as he threw his arms up to protect his face, he caught a glimpse of gleaming green eyes and batlike wings—and realized that this wasn’t a bird after all.

“Batty Lad! You could have warned me!”

The flying creature veered sharply and landed on Tamwyn’s forearm, his furry belly heaving with exhaustion. “Me do do come to warn manny man. Oh yessa ya ya ya! Bigga warning. Terribibble danger!”

Tamwyn, who was panting just as heavily, fixed his gaze on Batty Lad’s eerie green pupils. “What danger?”

“Not to you, manny man. To others, yessa ya ya ya.” He lifted his wings to cover his small face and cupped ears. “Ooee ooee . . . itsa bad, terribibble bad.”

“What?” Tamwyn raised his forearm so that his nose almost touched the babbling creature’s. “Tell me who’s in danger. And from what.”

“Everybodya ya ya!” shrieked Batty Lad. “Froma the dragon!”

Tamwyn didn’t wait to hear any more. A dragon, at their camp? He dropped Batty Lad into the pocket of his tunic, turned, and started to run—this time even faster than before. Faster than he could remember running in his life. Faster than the wind.

His legs a blur, he sped back down the valley. He zipped past rocks, shrubs, and gullies, leaping over anything in his path. All he could hear was a whoosh of air in his ears . . . and the growing sound of shouts from the camp.

He came hurtling down the last slope. Just when he reached the small pool of water at the base of the knoll, he slammed his feet to a halt. There, stretched across the knoll, was a dragon.

Just then the dragon shifted its massive body. As it turned away from the now-empty pot of stew that its long green tongue had been probing, Tamwyn could see that its enormous head—three times as large as that of a horse—was completely armored with yellow and blue scales except for a scarlet bump between its eyes. That bump, he knew, meant that this dragon was still young. That still didn’t make it small, though: Each of its eyes, brighter than fire coals, were as big as Tamwyn’s own head. Hundreds of dagger-sharp teeth glistened in its gaping jaws. Its huge reptilian body stretched all the way down the knoll, the barbed point of its tail crushing the branches of the beech tree that Elli had sat under not long before.

On the dragon’s back lay a pair of immense, bony wings. Thick blue veins ran through them like swollen rivers. Unfolded, the wings could have covered the entire knoll. But even retracted they were as large as the sails made by the water elves of Caer Serella, whose legendary ships had traversed all the seas of Waterroot. Tamwyn gulped at the difference between these huge, leathery wings and the delicate ones that bore little Batty Lad.

The dragon didn’t seem to notice Tamwyn at all. And it seemed equally oblivious to Elli and Nuic, who were beating on its tail with sticks to get it to leave the camp. Nor did it seem to mind Henni, who had climbed the beech tree and was gleefully trying to seat himself on the barbed tail to catch a ride.

Instead, as the dragon turned, it caught sight of Llynia, who had climbed onto a boulder near the top of the knoll. She was angrily shouting commands at the beast while shaking her fists and stomping her feet. Undeterred, the young dragon started to stretch its scaly neck toward the priestess.

Fairlyn lunged between them. The elm spirit, who smelled of smoky dragon breath, stood firmly in front of Llynia and waved her boughs wildly. Although the dragon was, fortunately, still too young to breathe fire, it simply jerked its massive head sideways and sent Fairlyn tumbling down the slope.

As its toothy snout neared Llynia, she suddenly stopped shouting. A look of terror came over her face. Even her green chin went several shades paler.

The jaws opened—not all the way, but just wide enough to nip off the head of this irksome little creature on the boulder. The dragon’s tongue flicked across its black lips and rows of teeth. Llynia stood frozen with fear.

“No! Stop!” cried Elli, dropping her stick and beating her fists furiously against the armored tail.

Wider the jaws opened. And wider. Hundreds of pointed teeth, trailing shreds of meat and gobs of mucus, glistened. The dragon’s mouth started to close over Llynia’s head.

A high, wailing shriek pierced the air. The dragon suddenly halted. As the shriek grew louder, its fiery eyes narrowed down to mere slits. Then, all at once, it retracted its neck, brushing Llynia’s cheek with its tongue.

The dragon drew its enormous wings tight onto its back. Turning toward the sound, which came from somewhere up the rocky valley, it bellowed its own version of the cry in return. At the same time, it dug huge curved claws into the ground and pushed hard. Chunks of dirt and rock flew into the air. The dragon slid forward, then charged down the side of the knoll and into the valley.

No one spoke for several seconds. Fairlyn, cradling two broken arms, hobbled back up the slope as the color slowly returned to Llynia’s face. Elli stared after the departed beast, amazed and puzzled. Henni shook his head in disappointment because he’d missed his chance for a ride on a dragon’s tail. Nuic, though, was looking straight at Tamwyn, whose hands were cupped around his mouth.

“How did you do that?” demanded the old sprite. His color had shifted from deep red to a pulsing yellow.

Tamwyn lowered his hands. “Oh, it’s just a call I picked up . . . almost two years ago. When I tracked a family of dragons—not the biggest sort, more like the wyverns from the western caves. I watched them for almost a week.”

“You?” interrupted Elli. She gazed at the clumsy porter, who wore matching black eyes. “
You
made that cry?”

Tamwyn shrugged. “It’s not hard, really.”

“What is it?” she asked. “Some sort of battle cry?”

He grinned slightly. “Not exactly.”

“The cry of a predator, then? Something that scared it off?”

“Scared it, yes. Enough that it won’t be coming back here anytime soon. But not a predator.”

She stared at him, her face full of doubt.

One of his hands reached into his pocket to stroke Batty Lad’s furry head. “It’s the call of a mother dragon. I heard it often during that week. Means something like:
Get your scaly tail over here right now or I’ll eat your innards for supper.”

“How affectionate,” grumbled Nuic, still watching Tamwyn curiously. “But you haven’t answered my question. How did you do it?”

“Well,” he began. “I wrap my fingers like this, then place them over—”

“No, no, you idiot!” Now Nuic’s yellow color had veins of red running through it. “Not how did you make the sound. How did you
project
the sound?”

Tamwyn’s brow crinkled. “It’s just a trick, something I figured out when . . . well, when I had nothing better to do.” He shrugged. “Which is fairly often.”

“It’s not just a trick,” admonished Nuic. He waved his tiny arms. “It’s an
illusion
. Not a bad one, either, for a mindless beginner.”

Elli, who was just starting to ask another question, caught herself. Could it be? Her crusty old maryth had just said something rather close to a compliment. And to that idiot Tamwyn of all people! A mistake, surely. Or maybe one of Nuic’s games.

She stepped a bit closer to the young man, her feet crunching on the stubby grass. “Just how,” she asked skeptically, “do you
know
that’s what the cry means? It’s dragon language, after all.”

Again Tamwyn shrugged. From his point of view, she might just as well have asked him how he breathed. “I don’t know. It’s just another trick, I guess. Something I learned . . .”

“When you had nothing better to do,” finished Nuic. Though he sounded grumpy again, there was a strange, uncertain expression on his face.

Tamwyn’s gaze moved to the empty pot of stew on the knoll. “Guess I should start another supper, or we won’t be eating before the middle of the night.”

“Eating?”

All eyes turned to the hoolah sitting in the beech tree. Henni nodded vigorously. “Now
that’s
a language I can understand! Hoohoohoo, hehe, hoohoo.”

Tamwyn just shook his head. He started toward the food supplies, half of which had been swallowed by the hungry young dragon. Then, just to be sure they were now safe, he checked over his shoulder at the valley where the dragon had run off . . . and where he himself had run freely not long before.

There was no sign of the dragon. All that remained was the path of flattened soil and crushed rocks where it had dragged its enormous bulk over the ground. Nearby, in the rim of mud at the edge of the small pool, Tamwyn saw his own footprints from when he’d started his run up the valley.

And then he saw something else. Something that made his heart freeze.

There, embedded in the mud, were the prints from his swift run back to camp. Or at least that was what they should have been. Tamwyn stared at them in disbelief. For these prints were different. Much different.

They were the hoofprints of a stag.

18
•
Absolutely

Finally, Brionna neared the canyon rim. Though her legs shook from the strain of her long climb, she didn’t even pause before starting up the last redrock cliff. Higher she moved, and higher, like a squirrel on a tree trunk. Just below the top, she wrapped her hand around a protruding knob and lifted herself up enough to throw her leg over. With a final grunt of effort, she rolled onto the rim at last.

She lay there, flat on her back, gasping for air. With every breath, puffs of red dust rose off her tattered robe. This was the first rest she’d taken since leaving the sorcerer with the pale hands several hours ago.

Before she sat up, she let herself imagine her beloved Woodroot—the forest of endless greenery that she’d now see again. Rich and lively it was, full of verdant groves, sweet-smelling fruits, uncounted creatures, and alluring pathways. Seeing it again would surely restore her soul after those three tortured days on the sorcerer’s dam. For while she and Granda had been stolen away from Woodroot, bound and blindfolded, part of them could never leave those fragrant forest paths.

Though she was still panting, and her limbs felt as heavy as stones from the quarries, she forced her thoughts back to the present. She had a task to do—and a life to save. Granda’s life!

She sat up. But the sight that met her gaze almost made her collapse back on the rock. The lush border forest that grew right to the canyon rim, and that marked the boundary between Woodroot and Waterroot—El Urien and Brynchilla, as Granda would say—was gone.

Gone!

For half a league along the canyon wall, the border forest had been ripped away. Torn out by the roots. Slaughtered in a massive clear cut.

All that remained of those verdant groves near the canyon, where creatures always ran free, swinging from ropemoss and leaping from branches, was a wasteland of death. Everywhere lay severed trunks, broken limbs, slashed branches, and torn hunks of bark. The very heart of this forest had been brutally hacked to shreds and left to rot. And where were the creatures—the foxes, hedgehogs, woodpeckers, and deer?

A wind blew down the canyon, whipping the surface of the white lake behind the dam, wailing across the redrock cliffs. When it reached the murdered strip of forest, though, the sound of the wind changed to a deeper, heartrending moan. She felt sure it was a cry of pain, a cry of anguish from all the trees and creatures who had once lived in that place . . . and now were gone.

The scaffolding for the dam
, thought Brionna, her jaw clenched tight.
And all those logs for the barges. This is where they came from!
But the trees, unlike Brionna and her grandfather, had no chance to survive. No chance at all.

As the elf maiden lifted her gaze beyond the slaughtered stumps, she could see the reassuring greenery of Woodroot’s more distant hills—ridge upon ridge of living, breathing trees. Although the forest looked dryer, and its colors paler, than in seasons past, she knew that it was still very much alive. Within that greenery, branches still clacked and rustled and swished. Fawns still cavorted and tried to outrun their mothers. Larks still whistled freely and yellow swallowtail butterflies swooped in search of tasty blossoms. The song of the forest, one melody and many, still could be heard in those hills.

And yet, for Brionna, that song would now always carry another note. A note of pain, and loss, and the moaning wind.

She had no idea how long it took her to cross that stretch of ravaged land. She only knew that she seemed to be walking over an open, bleeding wound that could never truly heal. As she trudged across the clear cut, stepping over the hacked remains of so many innocent lives, she felt sick. Wretchedly sick. And she also felt angry—at the sorcerer, for creating this horror, and at herself, for joining in it.
How can you help that scourge of a sorcerer? What possible reason could be good enough?