For let a man knead pitch and fat and straw into gobs; and with these let him tempte the fire-drake: so will the foule beast eat and burst to smithers.
—Dragonslayer’s Guyde
hungry.〉
Kaeldra roused. Three pairs of slotted green eyes were cocked at her. Pyro pushed at her cheek with his nose.
〈Hungry.〉
Kaeldra yawned and stretched. Yellow light streamed in through the gap in the roof. She had lain down sometime after sunrise; now it must be midmorning, at least.
〈Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.〉 Encouraged, the draclings nudged at her face and neck. Their complaints pelted her mind like a hail of pebbles, made it impossible to think.
“Stop it!” Kaeldra said, laughing. She curled herself into a protective ball. The draclings prodded her, tickled her. Thrumming, they clambered onto her back. “Oh, all right,” Kaeldra groaned. She stood; the draclings slid down and landed in a heap. She stumbled through the cave; the draclings pounced at her feet. Her head felt heavy and dull. Not enough sleep. At the cave mouth she turned. “I’m going for food. You stay!”
She took two paces, then spun around to check. Pyro, halfway out of the cave, quickly slunk back in.
“Stay! I mean it, Pyro.” She hoped she sounded firm enough. If they got out and started floating, she didn’t know what she would do.
At the spring, Kaeldra drank deeply, then splashed water on her face. A smudge of rainbow blurred across the droplets on her lashes. There was a quick flash of light; the droplets burned her eyes like tiny suns.
Startled, Kaeldra dashed the water from her eyes. And then the pain came. It grew until her cheeks and temples pulsed with it. It grew until her whole head swelled with it, drummed with it, seemed to split and burst with it.
Kaeldra cried out and dug her palms into her face.
The pain pulsed once, pulsed twice, pulsed three times more. And then began to shrink. Slowly, it shrank until it wasn’t pain anymore, but only an echo: a lingering ringing-in-the-ears of pain.
Kaeldra opened her eyes. The springwater splashed against the rocks. There was a trembling in the air, a low rumble that crashed and echoed like distant thunder.
Dizzy, Kaeldra staggered back toward the cave. Something still hurt inside her head, but not like the pain before. This hurt was small and sharp, like crying.
It was crying. The draclings were crying.
Kaeldra ran. She scrambled across the loose rocks, stooping to grab a handful. The wolves. Must stop the wolves.
But there were no wolves. Only draclings. Outside the cave. They staggered about, jostled one another, bumped into boulders. The crying was loud in Kaeldra’s mind.
No wolves.
“What is it?” Kaeldra asked, but the draclings paid no heed. The crying was so loud now that Kaeldra couldn’t tell whether she were really hearing it or just feeling it inside her head. She ran to Embyr, picked her up, set her down inside the cave. Then she pushed Synge in, but Embyr was already stumbling out. “Stay!” Kaeldra cried, but the draclings seemed not to know her or what they were doing. She shoved Embyr in again and ran to get Pyro. She threw him in; Embyr and Synge were out. Kaeldra stood at the cave mouth blocking one dracling, grabbing for the others, trying to keep them inside.
What is it?
Pyro pounced and streaked past her out of the cave. She wheeled around, snatched at him, missed.
“Come back here!” she cried. And then stood still, staring out across the valley.
Away in the south, a smoke plume curled lazily in the kollflower-blue sky. A ring of gnatlike specks swam round the smoke. But they weren’t gnats, Kaeldra knew. They were birds, all kinds of birds, more birds than Kaeldra had ever seen together at once. Through the crying, she could hear their calls.
Kaeldra suddenly felt as if she had swallowed a stone. Something awful had happened, she knew that. But what?
She turned to Embyr. 〈What is it?〉 she demanded. She cupped the dracling’s head in her hands. 〈Talk to me! Tell me what it is!〉
Embyr’s eyes met Kaeldra’s. Her crying stopped. Then it began again, only this time, Kaeldra understood. She threw her arms around the dracling’s neck as the wail ripped through her head:
〈Motherrr!〉