A few days later, Lief, Barda and Jasmine set out from Del on horseback, accompanied by a troop of palace guards. Lief carried with him both the fragment found in the table frame, and Josef’s precious copy of Doran’s Dragon Territories map.
As far as the people of the city knew, their king and his companions were going on their long-delayed tour of the kingdom, beginning in Broome, far to the east.
Only Doom and Josef knew their real purpose. To find the Sister of the East at Dragon’s Nest, to destroy it if they could, and perhaps, through knowledge of it, to guess at the hiding places of the other three Sisters.
‘I would give much to be going with you,’ Doom said as he farewelled them at the city gates. ‘But someone must stay to deal with things here.’
His mouth twisted in the familiar mocking smile.
‘And in any case, the three of you have done well enough without me in the past,’ he added. ‘I might spoil your luck.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Lief, clasping his hand warmly. He knew what it cost Doom to jest at this moment.
They were now all convinced that the kingdom’s future hung on this perilous quest. Hundreds of lastminute words of advice and warning must have been trembling on Doom’s tongue. But he held them back.
He knew that nothing he could say could help Lief, Barda and Jasmine now. He could only offer them his trust.
At a shout from Barda, the guards moved off, their heavy grey horses breaking into a steady trot.
With Kree swooping above them, the three companions followed. Their lighter, faster mounts, carefully chosen by Barda, snorted with pleasure, puffing mist into the crisp dawn air.
Lief rode Honey, a spirited golden mare with a flowing white tail and mane. Barda rode his favourite, a strong, sweet-tempered chestnut called Bella. Jasmine’s horse was the coal black Swift.
Lief looked back, lifted his arm to return Doom’s wave, and felt a pang of guilt.
‘Cheer up. What Doom does not know will not hurt him,’ said Jasmine’s voice beside him.
Jasmine was grinning, relishing her freedom from the city. Her long black hair was already tangling in the breeze. Filli peeped out from under her jacket. His tiny paws were clutching her collar tightly, and his black eyes were very wide. Plainly, he found horse-riding very alarming.
‘I am leading you into danger,’ Lief muttered. ‘And you are Doom’s child.’
‘Quite!’ Jasmine snapped, her grin disappearing. ‘Like father, like daughter. Have you ever known Doom tell all his secrets? Or to shrink from peril, for any reason?’
Lief said nothing. The relationship between Jasmine and her father, that strange mixture of love, respect and rivalry, was something he would never understand.
‘Besides,’ Jasmine said, in a milder tone. ‘Doom thinks we are going directly to Dragon’s Nest. There, we will be facing the Shadow Lord’s evil. Nothing we could do on the way could be more dangerous than that.’
Lief was not so sure. He fought back a shudder as he remembered …
Barda rode up on his left. ‘As soon as we are well out of sight of Del, I will give the order to turn north,’ he said in a low voice. ‘If you are still determined to do this, Lief.’
Lief moistened his lips. ‘I am,’ he said. ‘I feel it is the only thing that might help us. We need a weapon the Shadow Lord did not plan for. Powerful as the Belt of Deltora is, it may not be enough.’
‘Very well,’ Barda said grimly. ‘So, north it is. To the Os-Mine Hills. And the dragon.’
A day and a half later, they left their horses and the confused, nervous guards in a grassy space sheltered by the first rocky slopes of the Os-Mine Hills. Barda had put his men under the orders of Brid, his second in command, telling them that he, Lief and Jasmine wished to walk into the Hills alone, to gather healing herbs.
‘Did you have to tell that story?’ hissed Jasmine as the three companions tramped away, the guards staring after them. ‘Herbs! Now Brid and the others will think this trip to the Os-Mine Hills is my fault! Already, most of them believe I am a witch because I speak to birds and trees. Now, no doubt, they think I need rare ingredients for my spells.’
Barda shrugged. ‘All the better,’ he said. ‘The important thing is that they do not suspect our real reason for being here.’
‘Why can we not just tell them the truth?’ Jasmine exclaimed. ‘They will find out soon enough, if we come back to them leading a golden dragon!’
‘Leading it?’ growled Barda. ‘It is more likely that we will be running from it in terror.’
‘We have to keep the entrance to the underground world secret, Jasmine, you know that!’ said Lief. ‘And, in any case, the guards would panic if they knew what we planned. Dragons have an evil reputation. If the topaz dragon does rise, and does agree to help us fight the Sister of the East, it must seem a complete surprise.’
‘It will be a great surprise, as far as I am concerned, if the dragon does anything but try to eat us,’ Barda snorted. ‘That is, if it wakes at all.’
‘It will wake,’ said Lief, with a confidence he did not feel. ‘The presence of the Belt of Deltora in its territory will make it stir, I am sure of it.’
‘I am hoping that the Belt will also protect us from our old friends the Granous,’ Barda said. ‘It has killed evil creatures before, at the height of its power.’
Lief remembered the sharp, yellow teeth and stinking breath of the bloodthirsty, game-playing creatures that hunted in packs over these hills.
He did not relish the idea of becoming a prisoner of the Granous again. But he knew he could not depend on the Belt to save him.
‘The Granous are wicked, but they are not creatures of the Shadow Lord,’ he said in a low voice. ‘They are of Deltora. The Belt may weaken them, but that is all, I fear.’
They had walked for an hour, and the sun was high in the sky, when Jasmine stopped abruptly, lifted her head, and seemed to listen.
‘What is it?’ Lief whispered.
Jasmine murmured to Kree, and the black bird took flight. He wheeled overhead, and in moments was back on Jasmine’s shoulder, squawking rapidly.
‘Granous,’ Jasmine said briefly. ‘In a clearing not far over the next rise.’
‘We must find a way around them,’ said Barda. ‘We cannot afford a fight now. Tell Kree—’
He and Lief froze as suddenly a wail of terror echoed through the hills.
‘If we are careful, the creatures will not hear us, or smell us either,’ Jasmine said calmly. ‘They are well occupied. They already have a prisoner.’
Her companions stared at her in dismay.
She met their eyes coolly. ‘It is good fortune for us,’ she said. ‘We would be well advised not to interfere.’
‘But we cannot knowingly leave someone at the mercy of the Granous!’ Lief hissed. ‘They will ask him their infernal riddles, and when he cannot answer them they will start biting off his fingers and toes. They will kill him, Jasmine!’
‘Better that they kill a stranger than that they kill us,’ Jasmine said. And Lief knew that she was repeating a lesson she had learned only too well in the terror that was the Forests of Silence.
For a moment he hesitated. He knew that he should not let his heart rule his head in this. But then the piteous cry came again, followed by a scream of pure agony.
‘No!’ Lief breathed. He started forward.
‘Wait! I will go back and fetch the guards,’ said Barda, catching at his arm.
Lief pulled himself free. ‘There is no time for that!’ he muttered. ‘Come with me or not, as you like.’
He began to run, and Jasmine and Barda followed, as he knew they would.
Panting, the three scrambled up the next hill. When they reached the top they flattened themselves on the ground and crawled forward until they could see the ground below.
The other side of the hill fell away into a treacherous, pebbly slope ending in a tumble of parched rocks. Beyond that was a grove of stunted trees, from which came the faint sounds of moaning and sobbing mingled with rough laughter.
They began picking their way down the slope. Their progress was agonisingly slow. The sounds from the trees were growing louder and more disturbing.
Lief’s heart was pounding. He was sickened by the thought of what was happening in the grove. As soon as he reached level ground, and the trees were straight ahead, he reached for his sword.
‘Do not even think of charging in there, Lief!’ Barda whispered fiercely in his ear. ‘We will have no chance in hand-to-hand combat with twelve Granous! We must try to separate them.’
Lief gritted his teeth and nodded. Desperate as he was to free the sobbing, groaning man within the grove, he knew that Barda was right.
‘Jasmine, you come with me,’ Barda ordered. ‘We will try to lure some of them away. Lief, there is probably a clearing in the centre of the grove. Move around it and get behind the prisoner. Cut his bonds if you can, but keep out of sight until I give the signal.’
They separated. Lief crept around the trees until, through a gap, he saw movement. He moved in a little, and his stomach turned over as he suddenly gained a clear view of what was happening in the clearing.
The Granous were gathered around someone who was sitting at the clearing’s edge. Their shaggy grey bodies almost hid their victim. Lief could only see a mop of curly brown hair, hunched shoulders shrouded in a brown cloak and a hand clutching another hand, from which bright red blood streamed.
‘Time for the next question!’ the biggest of the Granous cackled. ‘Another question, another finger!’
The others danced backwards, screaming with pleasure and snapping their jaws. Then Lief saw the sobbing victim clearly for the first time.
He was sitting propped against a tree, bound in place by strong vines. From the waist up, he looked like a man. But from the waist down he was covered in thick brown fur, and he had delicate, pointed black hoofs instead of feet.
Astounded, Lief realised that he was looking at a being he had thought was merely a legend. The Granous had captured a Capricon.