CHAPTER

28

Nemery peered through the trees, overlooking the wreckage—two broken Drift crates, a handful of collapsed tents, a smattering of backpacks strewn through the tall grasses of Bo’s Glen. She was especially proud of the deep talon gouges she’d raked into the soil and the goat entrails she’d splattered against the side of the crate.

The destruction looked good, but Nemery was starting to worry that the cultists weren’t even going to notice the scene.

“Their guide should have stopped them by now,” Nemery whispered to Mohdek.

“You use the term guide too loosely,” was his reply. “This one seems even less capable than the last.”

They had quickly noticed that none of the large summiting parties had hired true professionals. But that didn’t surprise Nemery. Who would be willing to lead entire families to the top of Pekal on a one-way trip to Moonsickness?

The guides were obviously fellow cultists with some Pekal experience. Probably ex-Harvesters. Maybe even poachers. Still, the guiding got easier with every passing group, trampling a veritable highway up the slopes.

By Nemery’s estimation, there were eighty cultists in this party, with at least fifteen of them younger than her—some of them little enough to be carried in packs or on top of Drift crates. Bo’s Glen was a common camping site for the first night out of New Vantage, but this party was moving so slow that it had taken them two days to reach it.

“Here we go,” muttered Mohdek. Halfway across the meadow, Nemery saw the guide hold up his hand, bringing the procession to a grinding halt. Packs were slipping from shoulders and people were collapsing into the grass, grateful that their leader had called a break. But Nemery could see the concern on the faces of those in the front of the group as they drew closer to the first crumpled tent.

“You better get into position,” said Nemery. “Signal me when you’re ready.” Mohdek nodded with a grin, moving off through the trees.

The guide and a handful of others were now spreading upward through Bo’s Glen, examining the wreckage that Nemery and Mohdek had put out. The cultists’ anxiety was palpable, especially once they recognized the brand on the gear, matching the same supplier as the equipment they carried. The tension began to ripple through the large crowd, even managing to bring some of the laziest-looking people back to their feet.

She heard Mohdek’s whistle through the trees, easily mistakable for the chirping of a small bird. He was in position. Now it was her turn to signal back.

Nemery crawled forward, pulling aside a broadleaf branch to reveal the shiny mouthpiece of her Caller instrument. It was disguised well, even though she hadn’t built a full hut. That had seemed like overkill. Staying hidden from the eyes of eighty frightened cultists would be much easier than going unnoticed by one determined dragon.

Nemery reached up and began to prime the little box. She loved the subtle rattle as she pulled the cords in a steady, rhythmic fashion. She had decided on Territorial Bull, the same Call she had used when trying to frighten Motherwatch. It was really her only choice, since any other Call would risk bringing a curious dragon down on them. And Homeland knew she wasn’t going Wilder Far on these people.

Nemery drew a deep breath and placed her lips on the mouthpiece. The brass buzzed, her whole face vibrating as she unleashed the impressive sound.

Twenty yards to her side, there was a tremendous rustle in the trees. Like a gale force, it bent trunks and broke limbs, sending them careening toward the cultists in a maelstrom of leaves and twigs. This was accompanied by a blast of heat that even Nemery could feel from her position in the trees. She squinted one eye against it, pealing on with every bit of breath she had.

The cultists were screaming and running back the way they’d come. The guide and a few others had drawn guns, taking blind potshots into the woods ahead. Nemery heard one of the Roller balls crack into the stump in front of her, chipping up splinters.

See, Moh, she thought. I told you it was a good idea to barricade.

Her breath ran out, but she sucked in another, putting it through the instrument and feeling the rumble of the great horn all the way down to her toes.

There were a lot of things that didn’t add up about their little trick, but Nemery was counting on fear and ignorance to overlook them. For example, a bull dragon would rarely, if ever, cry twice in a row like that. And as for Mohdek’s part, that was pure theatrics. She supposed the combination of Void and Heat Grit—both of which they had stolen from a previous group of cultists—was meant to represent the hot breath of a dragon. But if that were so, how could the dragon bellow a cry at the same time it was breathing heat? And Nemery was banking on no one sticking around long enough to realize that the dragon’s breath seemed never to waver for a full ten minutes.

Sure enough, the relentlessness of their deception was working. The guide and front guards stood their ground only until the bulk of the cultists had made their retreat. Then they, too, began backing away in haste.

Nemery sounded the instrument one last time, blowing until the last person had moved out of Bo’s Glen and disappeared from sight. She knelt back, sitting on her heels, flapping her lips to shake out the tingling sensation leftover from the instrument.

“Just the person I was looking for,” said a deep voice from behind her.

Nemery lunged to the side, drawing her dagger from a thigh sheath. She whirled to face the intruder, but she didn’t even need to bring up her blade.

“Raekon?” She relaxed at the sight of him, but only a little. The big man was wearing an overstuffed pack with a crossbow dangling from it. There was a short sword on his hip, the type commonly used to clear underbrush when hiking off the trail. His bald head was bare, and his sleeveless shirt showed his massive biceps.

“How did you…?” Nemery sputtered. “Why are you…?”

“I enjoyed your little performance,” he said. “Sent those Bloodeye-worshipers running with their tails between their legs. But I know a ruse when I see one.”

“You were with them?” she asked.

“Only for a little while,” he said. “We caught up to them an hour or two ago, and we were just hanging around long enough to ask if any of them knew where I could find someone called Salafan.”

Nemery stiffened at his use of the word we. “He’s with you?” she asked.

“If by ‘he,’ you mean Ardor Benn,” said Raek, “then no. I’m with a Mixer named San Green. An old friend of Lomaya’s.”

“I know the name. Did Lomaya come, too?” Nemery checked.

“It’s just San and me.” Raek slipped his pack off his shoulders and shrugged to stretch, lines of sweat marking his gray shirt where the straps of the pack had been. “Lomaya… she didn’t make it.”

What? She had been so brave! So strong! It was hard to imagine that the young woman had bested Pekal only to fall in Beripent. “What happened?”

“Garifus Floc,” Raek answered.

“I’m sorry to hear it.” She tried to shrug off the heavy feeling. “Where’s your companion?”

“Soon as I decided that was a fake dragon Call, we slipped away from the group and made our way around the sides of the glen. I sent San along the north edge so we’d be sure not to miss you. He should be here any second.”

“What tipped you off?” Nemery gestured to the glen.

“Well, those weren’t human guts spattered on the side of that Drift crate,” he answered. “So unless there’s a dragon with an exclusive taste for goat, I’m guessing nobody actually died here. That, and the apparent lack of carcasses.”

“The cultists didn’t seem to notice,” said Nemery. “Of course, regular folk tend to think that an attacking dragon eats every scrap of every person in sight.”

Raek glanced through the trees in the direction that the group had fled. “Not sure what you were hoping to accomplish, though. They’ll just find another way up.”

She shook her head. “Any guide worth their salt knows that there’s an alternate route just half a mile back. We only need them to get to the fork in the trail.”

“Then what?” asked Raek.

“Regulator Chief Lampar has a regiment waiting there,” said Nemery. “Once the cultists come into sight, she’ll have them.”

Raek grinned. “A trap. How’d you arrange that?”

“A fleet of Reggies sailed into New Vantage just two days ago,” she said. “Moh and I were there when they started rounding up the cultists and packing them onto their ships by the hundreds. Taking them in shackles if they didn’t go peacefully. This group struck out as quick as they could, and Chief Lampar was pretty chapped that she couldn’t get permission from the higher-ups to go on a chase across the mountainside. Moh and I offered our services to herd them back into reach. We’re hoping this should be the last of them.”

“Should be,” Raek agreed. “The queen herself dispatched that Reggie fleet. Completely closed down Pekal until Garifus Floc could be dealt with and—”

“Garifus is here?” Nemery cut him off.

Raek gave a gesture that was part nod and part shrug. “At least he made a public announcement that he was on his way.”

“Well, he didn’t come through New Vantage,” she said. “Ednes Holcatch would have told me if she’d laid eyes on a bunch of oversized people with glass heads. They must have sailed around to one of the other harbors.”

“They don’t need harbors,” Raek said gravely. “The Glassminds are stronger than before.”

“Stronger?” she croaked. Was there no end to their powers? “What do you mean?”

“It’s complicated,” said Raek. “In a nutshell, they have changed the way they perceive time.”

“Huh?”

He rubbed his chin. “They can use Visitant Grit to create… portals. Once they step through, they can move through parallel timelines and pop out anywhere they want in the world.”

Nemery blinked hard. “I don’t…” What was he talking about? “They can… appear out of thin air?”

“Basically,” he replied. “Although I thought the Glassminds would have appeared here.” He jabbed a thumb at the Glen. “To be with the cultists.”

“They’re probably with the first caravan,” she whispered.

“You mean there are more of them?”

Nemery nodded, discouragement clouding her face. “There are three groups on the mountainside already. Mohdek and I have been waiting outside New Vantage for days, hitting the caravans as soon as they set out. We turned four of them back to regroup. I assume the Reggies have gathered them up by now.”

Raek didn’t bother to hide how impressed he was. “Same tactic every time?” He glanced at the Caller instrument.

“Actually, this was new,” she replied. “Our usual method is to wear them down. Steal and destroy their provisions until the going looks so bleak that they turn back to recuperate. We poisoned the third group, but that made a mess of the mountain.”

“Sparks!” he exclaimed. “There were children in those caravans.”

She held up a hand. “It was just a drib of Nightsure extract. Nothing serious. And they were less than a day out. Made them miserable enough to head back to New Vantage in a hurry. Anyway, between the three groups that got past us, Mohdek and I estimate that there are close to two hundred people already on their way up.”

“Let’s make that two hundred and two,” Raek said. “San and I are heading to the summit. And I was hoping, just hoping, that you and Mohdek might be willing to—”

“Flames, no!” She turned away from him, her face growing hot. “I’m never going up there again. Certainly not for you!”

Raek scratched his chin. “I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?”

“Motherwatch,” she whispered.

“The dragon?”

“Ardor took her,” Nemery said. “She had a hatchling.”

Raek sighed loudly. “Ard makes a lot of stupid decisions. Especially when I’m not around to keep him in check.”

“What’s he doing now?” She didn’t want to know, but she had to.

“Oh, I imagine he’s probably pacing the floor, scheming up all they ways he could get back at me once I get home.”

“What?” Nemery risked a glance at him. “He didn’t send you?”

“Definitely not,” said Raek. “In fact, I had to push him down and knock him out just to get away.”

“You?” Nemery said in disbelief. Everything she’d ever heard about Ardor Benn and the Short Fuse spoke of unbreakable friendship. “Are you lying to me?”

He raised his hands. “No. Not I. ’Tis the honest truth.”

She felt like he was being forthright, but there was obviously more to this story.

“In fact,” Raek continued, “nothing would spite Ard more than if you were to guide me to the summit.”

She felt her heart beat a little faster at the thought of vengeance against Ardor Benn. Still, she couldn’t shake a lingering feeling that Raek might be manipulating her to Ardor’s benefit.

Gratefully, her reply was postponed by the sound of a twig snapping in the trees. Nemery and Raek both turned, the big man putting a hand on the hilt of his short sword.

“Back away from her,” Mohdek called to Raek. Sparks! He had a young man in a vise grip, a long knife pressed to his throat.

“Oh, good,” Raek said, letting go of his sword. “You met San Green.”

“It’s all right, Moh,” Nemery said in Trothian. “You remember Ardor Benn’s companion, Raekon Dorrel?”

Mohdek lowered his knife, but he didn’t release his hold on San. The young man looked terrified. He was probably just a couple of years older than Nemery, but there was a softness to his features that Pekal had taken from her a long time ago.

“What are they doing here?” Mohdek asked her.

“They want us to guide them to the summit,” she replied, their conversation still in Trothian.

Mohdek scoffed. “What kind of saps does Ardor Benn think we—”

“Raek said they came on their own,” Nemery interrupted him. “Against Ardor’s wishes.”

“And you believe him?” Mohdek asked.

Nemery nodded. “I do.”

Mohdek finally let go of San, pushing him forward. The man stumbled under the weight of his backpack, but didn’t go down.

“You’re the one who rescued my friend,” San said, staring straight at Nemery. She couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement.

“Lomaya Vans,” Nemery affirmed. “She had a lot of good things to say about you.” She paused. “Raek told me what happened. I’m sorry.”

“Garifus has to be stopped,” San hissed.

“That’s why you’re here?” Mohdek asked him. “For revenge?”

“I don’t know what I could do against someone like Garifus.” San blinked away tears, steeling himself as he gestured at Raek. “I’m here with him. I figure what he’s doing is pretty important if he was willing to turn on his partner for it.”

Ah. So San Green corroborated Raek’s story. Either that made it true, or the two of them had discussed it before entering Bo’s Glen. But she was inclined to believe him even more than Raekon. San didn’t have the look of a liar about him.

“How do you intend to defeat Garifus once you catch up to him?” Mohdek asked.

“I’m with San on that one,” said Raek. “I’m not sure we can hold a candle to him. Garifus has plans after his followers transform. He blabbed all about them on the docks in Beripent. And he’s more powerful than ever, now that he’s tinkered with time itself.”

“What are you talking about?” Nemery shook her head.

“It’s a lot to wrap your head around,” he said. “Luckily, we have several days of hiking ahead of us. I should be able to catch you up on everything by the time we reach the summit.”

“We’re not going to the summit,” Nemery insisted.

“Garifus is planning to kill the dragons,” Raek said bluntly. “That’s his big plan. Destroy the dragons and everyone in the Greater Chain gets Moonsick.”

“Which will allow him to transform everyone with massive controlled detonations of Transformation Grit,” added San.

A sudden wave of terror gripped Nemery’s insides. It was the kind of fear that quickly turned to panic if left unchecked. The kind she had felt first on this island, when that branch had punctured her leg during the dragon fight years ago. She’d felt it again when her Harvesting party had been taken by Sovereign soldiers, and again when their ship had been scuttled off the Dronodanian coast.

She glanced at Mohdek, finding the comfort and strength she needed to control that terror before it transformed. But even he looked shaken, his blue face blanched, dark vibrating eyes staring out through the trees.

The idea of the entire world overcome with Moonsickness was upsetting enough, but Nemery was stuck on what would have to happen first.

“Nobody’s going to touch my dragons,” she whispered.

“Then I assume you’ll be heading up?” Raek asked.

“Fine,” she said after a moment of final deliberation. “We hit the cultist camps along the way. The fewer that make it to the top, the fewer the Glassminds. The better chance the dragons will have at defending against them.” She stepped between Raek and San, picking up her bow and quiver from the spot where she’d leaned them against a tree trunk. “I expect the two of you to keep up.”

“I can go hours when I’m full of Heg,” Raek said.

Nemery shared a concerned glance with Mohdek. They were becoming regular summit guides at this point. First a desperate father, and now a Health Grit addict?

Raek picked up his pack. “Lead the way, Salafan.”

I have been a mighty dragon, commanding respect from everyone in the room. But inside I often feel like little more than a Karvan lizard with claws of thin foil.