Chapter 17 #3
“Here.” She handed the salve to Fel and Teyla with instructions to do the same. “It can’t hurt, and maybe it’ll help.”
The other dragons have passed, Wreylith said, sharing her words with all. We will depart to hunt.
“Other dragons?” Syla had been reaching for her lantern but paused.
A wing of domesticated stormer dragons flew along the coast, heading north. One came up the river and stopped to speak with Agrevlari.
“They had riders?”
Yes, the rider likely also spoke to the stormer captain.
“Vorik.”
Someone sent by his general with an update to his orders? Had the passing dragons said anything to Igliana? Were they kin of hers? Allies?
The dragons are all gone from our senses now, Wreylith said.
“Agrevlari and the other one too?” Syla jumped as something scurried through the undergrowth near her foot, brushing her trouser leg. Another insect buzzed past, stirring her hair.
Yes.
“Maybe they went with the others,” Teyla said.
“Leaving us alone to search for the component?” Syla should have found that heartening, but if the rainforest was half as dangerous as described, she would have preferred Vorik to be in the area.
Even though he was undoubtedly at cross-purposes with her, she also didn’t doubt that he would come to help if he heard her scream.
“Let’s hope,” Fel grumbled.
We can sense other dragons from afar since they are so strongly magical, Igliana said. We sense most humans not at all, except by scent and sight and sound, since few have any magical signature.
We can sense the princess and the rider captain, Wreylith said, simply not from as far away as dragons.
Yes.
Syla took the commentary to mean that Vorik and his officer might be in the area but undetectable by her allies. She lit a dragonspark match. Fel stepped close to return the salve container, but he also held a hand up toward her lantern again.
“I wouldn’t. We can camp and wait until morning to search for your ruins.”
Syla hesitated. As the princess and heir apparent to the throne, she was in charge of this expedition, but Fel had a lot more experience out in the world. Maybe he’d even traveled to the mainland before as a soldier. Or maybe he just had more of an idea what was out there.
An insect the size of a bat flew out of the darkness and toward the lit match. Syla gasped and dropped it.
In an instant, Fel had his mace out and swung toward the thing.
Even with the fluctuating light as the match fell, he managed to strike the huge insect.
Blood spattered Syla’s face, mingling unpleasantly with the mosquito deterrent she’d applied, and the bat-bug fell to the ground beside the smoldering match.
She glimpsed a long stinger before Fel stepped on the match and extinguished it.
“We should move farther inland—away from the water—to camp.” Fel waved in that direction. “There might be fewer insects and animals there.” Something roared from the direction he’d pointed, the noise sounding more feline than dragon, and he lowered his arm. “Fewer insects anyway.”
“Are you sure?” Syla asked.
“No.”
She gazed up toward the tree with the moss bulb. Even though her eyes were gritty from fatigue, she was reluctant to huddle in the dark and attempt to sleep when Vorik might be out there, hunting for exactly what they sought. And he had that extra keen night vision.
We depart. Wreylith sprang from her perch and flapped her wings. Be wary. Many creatures that can threaten those without fangs, fire, and talons live in these wilds.
“Yes. Thank you.” Syla rubbed the bite mark on her hand, the skin already warm and swollen. “Wait. Can you light a fire before you go?”
In the darkness, she could only sense Fel’s glower, not see it, but his objection had been to her carrying a lantern with her, hadn’t it?
A fire?
“So we can see the area better.” Syla attempted to share an image of a cheerful campfire, though it wasn’t as if a dragon would gather logs and kindling. More likely, Wreylith would—
The dragon angled toward the bank and opened her maw. Fire roiled in the back of her throat.
“Get back!” Fel grabbed Teyla and Syla to pull them farther from the bank.
Wreylith wouldn’t have struck them, but when she poured a gout of fire into a thick tree growing near the edge, the flames did flow inland alarmingly far beyond her target. Even from thirty feet away, Syla could feel the heat against her cheeks.
Branches caught fire, leaves incinerating, and Wreylith banked, her red belly gleaming in the orange light before her wings carried her upriver and out of view.
“Thank you!” Syla called after her.
The tree didn’t burn as spectacularly as one bathed in dragon fire in a drier climate would have, and Syla could already tell the flames wouldn’t spread, but they did provide some light.
She picked her way back to the moss bulb, peering up at it, then all around.
Instead of the signs of a past civilization that she sought, she spotted a knee-high red-capped mushroom at the base of a nearby tree.
“Oh, is that a tendric toadstool? A tea made of dried powder from the cap treats digestive ailments and intestinal parasites.”
“Delightful,” Fel rumbled, eyeing the burning tree.
Insects were indeed being drawn by the flames, but fewer of them were molesting Syla, so she considered that a boon.
“Does anyone see—” she started to ask but glimpsed vibrant moss dangling from another tree.
“Oh, a blue bryophyte. They’re known to lower inflammation when added to a poultice.
” Had the ground been less uneven, she would have skipped happily to the branch to pluck off a few clumps.
Maybe she would add it to a poultice for her fresh bug bite later.
She could repair such wounds, but if many were acquired, it was more taxing to treat each one with magic than simply let them heal on their own. “This place is wondrous.”
Teyla whirled, swinging her sword at something that flew past, hissing as it went.
Another roar floated out of the rainforest.
Fel slapped at the back of his neck. “Wondrous. Right.”
“I see a Frandle fern.” Syla clambered over a log, picking her way to huge gray-green fronds.
“They’re named for the herbalist who penned a book on edible and medicinal ferns before the Gods War.
I think his people lived on the coast not far from here and traveled inland up the rivers to collect and study plants.
I can’t wait to see what we can find in the morning when there’s more light. ”
The roar sounded again, closer.
“We may not be here in the morning.” Fel still held his mace, and he eyed the darkness in the direction of whatever great cat was prowling closer. “Is she always so easily distracted?”
The question was for Teyla, but Syla answered, barely noticing another bug brushing her, though she reflexively swatted at it.
“You’ve seen me in the antiques shop, Sergeant. You should know that items related to certain passions of mine can capture my attention.”
“At least there aren’t artificial-leech contraptions out here,” Fel grumbled.
“No, but I bet there are real leeches. Numerous varieties.”
“You shouldn’t say that with such excitement, Syla,” Teyla said. “Not when we have to sleep out here tonight.”
“Well, stay out of the water.” Though Syla would happily have hunted every square inch within the influence of the firelight, she reluctantly admitted that foraging for medicinal plants wasn’t her mission.
Maybe one day, if she could talk Wreylith into giving her another ride, she could return with an expedition to seek useful plants, fungi, and mosses.
Weren’t razorcoons, known for their hollow quills full of the protein-repairing asaka liquid, native to this area?
Maybe she could even find new useful substances that humans hadn’t yet learned had value.
In the meantime… “Does anyone see any ruins?”
“The likelihood,” Teyla said, “of us stumbling upon the remains of an ancient civilization within fifty feet of the place we happened to come ashore is slim.”
“We wouldn’t be stumbling.” Syla stepped onto the log, moss and soggy bark squishing under her feet, and gazed into the depths of the rainforest. “We chose this spot because it was a rare section of high ground that appears to escape the floods. Local people would have valued such a locale. And there’s a richness of medicinal plants here.
Oh, and the fiddleheads of the Frandle ferns are edible.
And, I’ve read, tasty. People would have naturally been drawn to a place like this.
They may even have cultivated some of these plants if they lived in the area.
” She brightened at the thought. “In fact, I’ll wager someone definitely did that at some point.
Otherwise, to discover so many useful plants in one area would be surprising. ”
She reached out with a loving hand to touch one of the fiddleheads.
“Should we ignore her while she prattles and fondles fern fronds?” Teyla asked. “And set up a camp?”
“I’ve been informed in the past,” Fel said, “that princesses don’t prattle. They rhapsodize on their passions.”
“That sounds like something Nyvia would have said.” Syla smiled sadly as memories of her sister came to mind.
“I was her bodyguard for many years.” Fel sounded sad too.
He was always so stoic and unflappable—other than complaints about his age, joints, and old injuries—that Syla hadn’t considered that he probably missed her family too.
After all, he’d served as a bodyguard, first for her parents and then for her sister for almost twenty years after his twenty years of service in the military.
“And she never prattled?” Teyla asked.
“Not that she would admit.”
Syla touched the back of her hand. Other than the brief flare of silver her moon-mark had given when the bug had bitten her, it hadn’t glowed since coming ashore, but she also hadn’t attempted to use her magic.
Since the preserved moss bulbs she sought were magical, might her power allow her to sense some in the area?
She’d never tried to use her power to find anything, but maybe locating medicinal objects would be within her realm.
Actually, Teyla’s power might be more suited for this. As a gods-gifted archaeologist, might she be able to sense ancient ruins? Especially if magic lay within?
Syla turned, about to ask when the quarter moon outlined itself on her hand. The mark warmed, but she had the sense that it was a warning, not an offer to guide her somewhere. When she peered into the dark rainforest again, something glinted yellow-orange in the distance.
Fel patted his pack. “I do want to move farther inland to set up camp. I wish I’d thought to bring netting to protect us from all these bugs.”
“Maybe we could smother ourselves in fern fronds,” Teyla said.
“The moss would be more helpful. Do you two see that?” Syla pointed toward the distant glint, wondering what in the rainforest would account for that. Something reflecting the light of the dragon fire? It seemed too far away for that.
Could Vorik be out there? Carrying something magical? She thought of his gargoyle-bone sword but hadn’t seen it glow.
As Fel and Teyla looked after her pointing finger, a second yellow-orange glint appeared next to the first. Bloody daggers, were those eyes?
“I see them,” Fel said.
The bespectacled Teyla took longer to pick it—them—out. “Yes. Eyes?”
“I’m not sure,” Syla said. “They’re not moving.”
“If they’re still there in the morning, we can check them out,” Fel said.
“Sergeant,” Syla said, “we have competition in this quest, and all of Harvest Island is threatened as we speak.”
He glowered at her.
“We’re not setting up camp if something inimical is over there watching us.
Come with me, please.” Syla picked her way toward the glinting eyes—or whatever they were.
They didn’t move. But one had appeared and then the other, as if they’d opened one at a time, so they might well belong to an animal. A threat.
Fel swatted an insect at his neck and continued glowering but came with her when she ventured deeper into the rainforest. Teyla hesitated, then walked behind them, wiping her sweaty palm so she could keep a good grip on her sword.
If there had ever been a trail leading from the river, it had long ago been swallowed by the rapid growth of the vegetation.
Navigating the fern-, shrub-, and plant-covered ground would have been tricky during the day, but at night, with the firelight fading as they moved farther away, Syla tripped and banged her legs repeatedly.
Only determination kept her going. And curiosity.
Further, her moon-mark brightened, acting as a light to illuminate a small area around her.
Repeatedly, she had to brush away insects, but as she crept closer to the glowing eyes, she could make out dark shapes that were straighter-edged, different from the natural curves of leaves and branches.
“Are those slabs of stone?” Syla asked.
“Covered with vines and leaves, yes,” Fel said, his eyes keener despite his various age-related woes. He didn’t need spectacles. “There are old buildings, I think, though there are trees growing up from some, and if there are roofs, half of them have collapsed.”
“How did people find stone for building out here?” Teyla waved around them.
They hadn’t seen a lot of boulders and definitely nothing like a quarry.
“Oh,” Teyla said, coming up with the answer to her own question, “I bet they floated them downriver on rafts. Those ancient people were impressively resourceful considering how low a technology level they had.”
Fel reached out and caught Syla’s arm, distracting her from answering and halting her advance.
He pointed his mace at something darker than the surrounding stone.
The remains of a doorway? It wasn’t far from the yellow dots gazing unsettlingly in their direction.
On the other side of the doorway, another pair of dots—eyes—opened.
Syla’s moon-mark glowed brighter. “Are those…”
“Gargoyles,” Fel stated. “They blend in with the stone slabs. Except for the eyes.”
Two huge creatures with armored stone-like skin, wings, and powerfully muscled arms and legs sprang away from the ruins. Their skin flared white-blue, and Syla abruptly sensed their magic. They’d come out of dormancy and were ready to hunt. Their eyes focused on Syla, and they charged.