Chapter 18
As much as I want to storm in, swords blazing, we can’t.
If whatever’s taking halflings could take Corrik, it’s something powerful.
We leave our horses and head into the clearing on foot.
On the other side of the slats of the mountain is more forest, leading up the mountain.
There’s a reason these are called the Unbroken Mountains, at least. Only the strong can survive ventures in this direction and people don’t generally travel this way, even Elves.
I might not have the same ability to sense magic as the Elves do, but I can feel the eerie presence of it.
Whatever’s got hold of this place, it’s strong and bad.
After traveling for half the day, we have to start thinking about making camp for the night, which is not good.
We still have no idea who or what we’re tracking, how to track them, or if we’re just heading to our deaths.
I try to remain optimistic, envisioning finding Corrik, keeping that in my mind, praying to the Gods for good fortune.
“Let’s find a place to make camp, no fires tonight, we’ll take shifts on watch,” I say.
“Highness, I insist that we take all the watch shifts. You should get full rest.”
Father and Papa always took a watch shift, unless it was imperative they get full rest for good reason since a lot of the decision-making fell to them.
“No. I will take the first one and then sleep the rest of the night.” I don’t trust them to wake me up.
It’s hard to put the edge of Arcade Kanes into my tone, toward someone like Jagar (I’ve always been taught to give elders a particular level of respect) but I manage.
“As you wish Your Highness, but please, don’t hesitate for anything, even if you think it might be nothing,” Jagar warns.
“I won’t, promise.”
We walk for a few more hours, with no luck, no signs, nothing, and then we pack it in for the night, eating sparse amounts of the little supplies we have.
Jagar and Aldagir turn in for a few hours.
I take a spot up in a tree, on a nice fat branch as Deglan taught me, watching over them with my bow at the ready.
My body is alive with electricity as I watch over them.
I also spend a great deal of my watch asking for a sign, something to tell us where Corrik is.
I have to believe he’s out there even when things are looking grim.
Two hours pass, and it’s about the time I should wake one of them.
I’m about to climb down the tree, when I hear a sound beside me.
I remain still, turning my head ever so slowly toward the direction of the sound.
It’s dark, but moonlight shines dimly on my tree hideaway.
I don’t see anything, but I feel something climb up my arm. It’s small, but it’s got claws.
I don’t know what it is, or what it will do if I alarm it.
I let the claws pinch my skin through my clothes and it continues to climb up my arm, toward my neck.
When it gets there, it nips my skin. “Ow,” I complain quietly at it.
By this point, I get the sense it’s not dangerous, but still, it’s probably wild and wild things don’t like sudden movements.
I have an idea of how big it is, and I think it could fit on the back of my hand, so I carefully move my hand toward it and nudge at it some.
It hops and lands, cinching its claws into my knuckles.
I hold the little blighter up to the largest patch of moonlight and though I’ve never seen the likes of it, I know what it is.
I recognize my kin.
“My word,” I say like Papa. “You’re just a little thing.”
The tiny dragon coos at me with a little trilling sound. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
I don’t know if it will understand me, but my bloodline is supposed to be able to speak to them.
Instead of answering me, it tucks its legs under, curls its wings around its body and closes its eyes.
Great, it’s asleep. I stow my bow and climb down the tree doing my best not to disturb his or her majesty.
They don’t even move. I roll my eyes. “Jagar,” I say quietly. “We have a visitor.”
Jagar wakes, keeping quiet so as not to disturb Aldagir if he can help it, but sleep on the road like this is rarely deep unless you’re Lucca, who can sleep through a stampede of horses. “Tristan, what is that?”
I smile at him finally feeling comfortable enough to call me Tristan. “A dragon.”
“Dragon?”
“Yes.” Dragons have long since left Markaytia, but legends always place them in other realms. They have popped up in stories from time to time but these stories are thought of as tall tales. Most Markaytians don’t believe in dragons anymore.
“You’re sure?”
“Sure, as the Kanes blood running through me.”
“What’s it doing?”
“Sleeping.”
As Jagar inspects it, Aldagir wakes. “What’s going on?” he says.
“Nothing too alarming, except that Tristan’s found a dragon,” Jagar tells him.
“I think it might have found me, actually.”
“Well, whatever it’s doing here, it’s not going to tell us tonight. Perhaps you should sleep too, Highness? I’ll take the next watch.”
I should, but both Aldagir and I are like little boys who’ve just found a puppy except that puppy is a dragon. “Do you think it’s male or female?” Aldagir asks, looking it over with wonder.
I reach out to the dragon with my inner senses, my blood, to get a feel of it. “I think it’s a he.”
“Well then, he’s kind of an arrogant little thing, falling asleep on your hand like that.”
“He might be but it wouldn’t be the first arrogant creature I’ve drawn into my life. I think he knows he’s safe with me.”
“Go to sleep you two,” Jagar says before he heads off to take his post. I’m surprised he’s given me a direct order, but it must be hard for him to resist what is natural. He’s incredibly dominant, I am brat. There’s no doubt he’ll be worried after my care.
Both Aldagir and I suppress a giggle for the light scolding, but it feels good.
Jagar realizes what he did. “My apologies Highness, I did not mean to tell you what to do. It’s just … well what would Prince Corrik say to you?”
“Say? He would not say anything. I would be placed over his knee and soundly spanked for not obeying him the first time.” I wink. “I don’t mind Jagar and I’m surprised it took this long for me to pull it out of you. I need it, but that’s the only time you’ll hear me say that.”
He smiles. “Get to bed then you two; you can play with the dragon in a few hours.”
The sun is barely rising when Aldagir wakes us both up. The tiny dragon is not where I left him last night. “He flew over there, Tristan,” Aldagir says. “I think he might be waiting for us.”
How odd. And he is waiting for us, perched on a jagged tree stump.
“Which way should we go, Highness?” Jagar asks.
“Northwest,” I tell him, he raises his brow. “That little fellow, that’s the way he’s staring. I think that’s the way to go.”
Without much else to go on, since Diekin’s instructions have long ended, we follow the little dragon keeping our eyes peeled.
The forest gets eerier, things feel tainted in this region, and it makes me wonder what this little guy was doing in here and where he came from.
As we move, the dragon continues to fly ahead of us, resting on this tree or that, until we catch up.
We follow him up the mountain for hours until we reach the mouth of a cliff that leads into a cave.
Surrounding the cave is some fucking weird stuff—an abandoned firepit, piles of clothing—children’s clothing—and a white coat I recognize.
“Corrik,” I say quietly. We don’t know what’s around here.
I look up to the dragon whose sharp eyes peer directly at me and then he takes flight disappearing in the strange, purple sky.
I look over to Jagar who’s investigating, he shrugs when he doesn’t find anything. I point to the cave, letting him know I’m going to head in, but he shakes his head, urging Aldagir to go with me. I wait and before I head in, I take a breath. I let it run through me.
Did I come all this way only to learn of Corrik’s death?
This place was abandoned a while ago, but something heinous happened here.
I use all the strength I have left to go into the cave, doing my best to hold my bow steady.
I chose bow over sword today, knowing it’s the only way I can be nearly as fast as something that isn’t human and if it took Corrik down, I know it couldn’t have been human.
Aldagir squeezes my shoulder just before I step in.
The stench alone almost brings me to my knees.
Something’s been dead in here a long time.
Light pours in from overhead and I can see a body on the ground.
It’s one I’d know anywhere, curled protectively around another, smaller one.
Toward the back are more small bodies and the carcass of something hideous hanging from the ceiling of the cave.
I’m not concerned with any of that for the moment.
I race over to Corrik, tears flooding my eyes.
Please don’t be gone. Please don’t be too late.
When I place my hand on his bare arm, it’s cold, but shaking him elicits a moan. Moaning is good. Moaning means alive. I shake harder. “Corrik! Corrik!”
“Tristan?” Corrik says, his voice is weak.
Corrik is worse for wear in nothing but a ripped pair of pants, barefoot and his hair badly disheveled.
From whatever it is his captors did to him, he’s not healing, his skin is marked with bruises, and broken open in places, dried with blood.
His hands are bound together with black cuffs that have strange writing on them and I see that his ankle is shackled and attached to the wall of the cave; his shackles have enough slack to allow him to move about.
I notice the other forms in the cave, the small ones, also attached to the cave wall in balls, unmoving.
“It’s me,” I say, almost mouthing it afraid I’ll wake the carcass of whatever’s rotting close by.