| |
SABORAAK FLEW FOR AS long as she could – about three hours by my guess. I watched that forest fire swell through the entire night. With every passing moment, I felt my own anxiety rising, bubbling up like boiling tar and occasionally bursting in a quick-breathing fear before I brought it under control. I kept seeing visions of Saboraak tiring and of setting down only to be unable to rise again and then of the flames coming and swallowing us up.
I do have to set down. I am too tired to go on. But those flames are far away and panicking about them won’t make things any easier for you.
I scowled. I wasn’t panicking.
What would you call those little breathing attacks?
Realism.
Get a grip. Zin is asleep. Zyla is holding her in the saddle. They need rest and so do I.
I really wasn’t panicking.
The moment Saboraak’s feet hit the ground, I loosened my straps and leapt off her back. The ground was rocky and uneven, and I nearly twisted an ankle.
Remember when I told you to look before you leap?
I rolled my eyes.
But it’s good that you have lots of energy. You have an important job.
I sure did. I needed something to eat and then a nice long sleep.
No. I need to sleep so I can fly us again in a few hours. I’m going into a deep recovery sleep. It will heal my wounds and rest me enough to be able to carry four people again. That means it’s up to you to keep watch for enemies and to wake me if there’s trouble.
What would she do if there was trouble?
Bataar slowly dismounted as we were communicating, dragging the saddlebags down after him.
Flame it, obviously.
You didn’t flame the Magikas back there!
I didn’t want to start a forest fire.
Well, nice work. There’s one anyway.
I was busy trying to fly with four people on my back!
You could have bought us some time!
“I’m not building a fire this time. I’m just going to curl up in a blanket and go to sleep,” Bataar said sleepily. “Don’t wake me unless we’re under attack.”
“Can I get a hand here?” Zyla asked and I rushed to help her. She could twist an ankle if she got down too quickly. She needed to be careful. “Zin fell asleep. Here. Help me lift her down.”
“There are only two blankets here,” Bataar said from where he was squatting over the saddlebags.
“Well, excuse me for not anticipating the need to provide for you,” I said irritably.
“Zin and I will share one,” Zyla said as I helped her carry her sister to a flat area near where Bataar had arranged the saddlebags.
We laid her down and Zyla took the offered blanket, covering her sister and then snuggling in under the blanket with her. The ground was damp. No one was going to be very comfortable. I noticed Saboraak move a little closer to the girls, bringing the heat she gave off a little closer.
“I get the other blanket,” Bataar said.
My eyes narrowed. Maybe he should keep the blanket. We didn’t need to fly with four people. We could fly with three and go a lot farther. He could use the blanket to keep warm while he hiked through the mountains.
Tor?
I was surprised by how vulnerable my big dragon sounded. I spun to look at her. Was she okay?
I have something to admit.
Was that all? Girls! They were so dramatic.
I don’t like killing people. That’s why I didn’t flame the Magikas back there. I ... I don’t like it.
I frowned, but inside I felt a burst of affection for her. She was really too soft-hearted to be a dragon. Go to sleep, Saboraak.
Goodnight.
There were already snores from where Bataar was huddled under his blanket. Of course. He stole my blanket and now he was sleeping like a baby. The other blanket was still and motionless, too. I saw the tip of Zyla’s nose peeping out of the blanket. I sighed. and the nose twitched. I’d better stop sighing. I didn’t want to keep her awake.
But now that everyone was quiet and motionless, exhaustion began to creep over me. I yawned, letting my eyes drift over the hillside we were camped on. The rocks were so large where they peeked out of the hillside – as large as dragons – that it would be nearly impossible to see if anyone was coming. I’d have to keep a close watch.
I fished some bread out of the saddlebags and began to eat. Only to keep myself awake, of course. My stomach rumbled the moment I smelled the bread and it took everything I had just to eat slowly and prolong the moments. Minutes dragged like hours. The cold damp had crept into my bones, making them feel brittle and sore.
I alternated between sitting and standing, stomping my feet to get them warm and looking often at the pendant Ephretti gave me. It seemed to catch the moonlight in a strange way, reflecting back on me. I even pulled out the small book Hubric had given me and flipped through it. I couldn’t make out the words by the light of the moon, but there seemed to be drawings, too. Sketches and maps. I would have to look at them better later. I tucked the book in an inner pocket of my trousers. I didn’t want to lose it any more than the pendant. I didn’t own much, so what I owned was precious.
The cold bit at me, leaving my breath in wispy clouds and clinging to any exposed skin so that I huddled deeper and deeper into the cloak.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t slept in the cold before, though now I couldn’t sleep at all. That figured. Tor has to come up with the plans and do all the work, but then he doesn’t get to sleep. Oh no, Tor gets to stand out in the flaming cold and freeze.
I circled the camp, letting those thoughts stew as I looked at the scraggly bushes surrounding us. The trees had petered out leaving hard, leafless bushes and scattered tufts of grass. This place was mostly made of loose stone and dirt. What a miserable land. No wonder it wasn’t part of the Dominion. We had proper dirt for growing things back home, and proper trees that could make a fire. I couldn’t even see enough trees to find firewood here.
I kept watching for the forest fire, but it was still only a far-away glow on the horizon. It had better stay like that.
My circles grew larger and larger. Moving helped. It kept me warm and awake, though my mind wandered a bit from tiredness.
It didn’t really matter, did it? As long as I kept the others in sight – or at least sort of in sight. They disappeared when I went around the larger rocks and then reappeared again when I made my way around the obstacles. That was what you did as a guard, right? You guarded things. And with these larger and larger circles, no one could sneak in and surprise us.
My circling was closer to the camp when I was above it on the hillside. The slope was too steep there to climb far without resorting to hands and knees – which I was not going to do – but when my circle reached the point below the camp, I found it widening and widening.
The rock formations and bushes were interesting, and I might even find a creek if I looked hard enough. It beat sitting around the camp listening to everyone else snoring or mumbling in their sleep – Zin did that, though her words were too muddled to be understood.
It was on a particularly wide arc below the camp, that I stumbled across a narrow opening between two dragon-large rocks. The roots and deadfall above them were so tangled that I hadn’t been able to look down behind the rocks from above, but this crevice between the two rocks was almost like a door.
I shouldn’t go in the crevice. Even with my brain this tired, I knew that. I shouldn’t even be this far away from camp. I was supposed to be guarding the others, and I was getting too far away from them.
And yet ... there was something about that little hole in the rocks that longed to be investigated. Maybe, if I just lit a torch and held it in the crevice, it would be enough to satisfy my curiosity.
I grabbed a likely looking bush, cursing when ripping it out of the ground tore my skin. Who would have known that the trunk of it was lined with talon-like thorns?
It was dry as the inside of my mouth and twice as dusty. Maybe there would be a well or a spring in those rocks. I’d heard of water coming out of rocks in dry places.
It was long minutes before I managed to really light the shrub. I had two others ready in my free hand. When this one burned down, I could light the next and then the next. I didn’t admit that I was planning to enter the rock crevice until I was jamming my body through and wishing I’d eaten less bread.