Rendak grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away. “Mirian, get back! That thing can crawl right out of there!”
He was right. Sea drakes were amphibious. If it wished, it could follow them into the sunlight. She allowed herself to be led away, stumbling. Alderra. What if she’d made Heltan turn over the necklaces to the humans? Alderra might be standing beside her now.
She pulled herself together and spun to take in their surroundings. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the brilliant noonday sun. Kalina and Jekka were on guard, him standing post to the north, her to the south. The ruins stretched away in every direction.
Mirian put her anger at Heltan aside for a moment. “Heltan, how close are we to the tower? We need to tend Ivrian.”
The boy was huddled to one side, coughing water out of his lungs. “My mother,” he said weakly, “has a potion on her belt.” He could barely hold up his head.
Rendak and Mirian exchanged a quick glance.
“She didn’t make it, lad,” Rendak said.
“What?” Ivrian fell into another coughing fit.
“Heltan?” Mirian prompted.
The Karshnaar leader was turning this way and that. Finally, he pointed south.
With Kalina and Heltan leading, Mirian and Rendak carried the wounded young man through the empty, weed-choked courtyard and around the dilapidated towers. Ivrian tried to ask about his mother, but Rendak shushed him gently. Jekka brought up their rear.
The sun was hot on Mirian’s shoulders; she could practically feel the water steaming up from her exposed skin. It wasn’t especially pleasant making their way barefoot across the rough ground, but they had no other recourse.
They found the first of the boggards about ten feet out from the tower, transfixed by a spear. There were four others about its base.
She knew then the creatures must have been watching from the jungle since this morning, or maybe even the evening before. She grimly climbed the tower with Rendak and Jekka to seek the bodies of her friends.
But the only bodies were two more boggards, lying amid a great deal of blood that may or may not have been human. Human belongings were scattered haphazardly about the room. Anything fragile was broken, and much of their clothing was in tatters, but mercifully their footgear was still intact, and while some boggards seemed to have taken delight in smashing each of Tokello’s glass bottles, a single healing potion in its brass tube had survived. Mirian clambered down to pass it off to Kalina, who’d taken it upon herself to guard Ivrian.
He was weak enough that even downing the potion was a challenge. While Kalina assisted him, Mirian consulted Jekka. “Can you find their tracks?”
“Tracks?” Heltan asked. He had donned his robe, marred now by a run of boggard footprints near the waist. He stretched his neck forward, eyes wide. “There is nothing you can do for the others.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I mean to find them. Jekka?”
“It should be easy,” Jekka announced, and crept away, head low.
“I am sorry about these others,” Heltan said, “but you know as well as I that they are probably already food—”
“You know as well as I they’ll probably be dragged back to the village for torture!” Mirian snapped. “You think I don’t know how boggards act? We can save them if we reach them in time.”
“How are you going to do that?” Heltan’s voice grew challenging. “Three humans against an entire tribe of boggards?”
It hadn’t occurred to her that the Karshnaar wouldn’t help. She stared at him, torn between a desire to punch him in the snout and the urgent need for his aid.
Kalina stepped between them. “First, I wager fully half the warriors of the tribe are food for the drake.” She paused and eyed her mate. “Second, the humans will not go alone.”
Heltan responded in the lizardfolk language.
“This is a council of peers.” Kalina sounded angry. “You will speak so we all understand.”
Heltan hissed. “That is a very noble thing to consider, Kalina, but we cannot risk this venture. Not now. We have come through, alive, and done what we were asked. I don’t want those humans ended, but we did not agree to help them.”
“So your precious library is more vital than your allies?” Kalina countered. “Maybe that is why our people are dying out. Because our leaders don’t know what’s important.”
“But if we die now, all of this will have been for nothing!”
Jekka loped up to them and interjected without preamble. “Their tracks are simple to follow. Very fresh.”
“Numbers?” Mirian asked.
“Probably two tens.”
“Right.” Mirian faced the dwindling members of her expedition. “Who’s coming?”
“You know I am,” Rendak said. He clapped a hand to his sword hilt. Ivrian, revived but haggard, stepped up behind him.
Jekka and Kalina both nodded their assent and fingered their weapons.
Heltan hissed, showing his teeth. “Brother, beloved—”
“Say nothing more, beloved, lest it be agreement.”
The lizard man all but gnashed his teeth. He stared hard at the other members of his tribe, then faced Mirian. “Very well. Do you have a plan?”
“My plan is to sneak in close and then arrange a distraction.”
“What sort of distraction?” Heltan asked.
Mirian smiled thinly. “I think you’ll like it.”