15
The terrain sloped upward to a steep ridge, the rocks jagged and slick with frost. Like Kurt had done, Malea dismounted and led her mare on foot, careful to step where Kurt had just passed.
Behind her, the horse followed with steady plodding steps.
The virkin circled overhead in wide, protective arcs.
They moved in silence, not just because the land demanded it, but because the sense of nearing something dangerous permeated her bones.
Keera descended first, gliding to a landing on a snowy outcrop just ahead.
“Here,” she said silently, her wings half-extended for balance. “This is the best vantage we’ve found. Just below, in the hollow, is the source of the disturbance.”
Malea crept forward, crouching beside Kurt as he settled on his haunches behind a tumble of boulders. She peeked over the edge, and her breath caught.
Nestled in a natural bowl of rock and snow was a mining encampment.
The accommodations looked rudimentary, but the place was active.
A handful of squat, low buildings surrounded the mouth of a cavern carved directly into the mountainside.
Small tendrils of smoke curled from chimneys.
Fires glowed in metal braziers near tents and rough-hewn buildings.
People moved through the area with quiet efficiency. No banners. No signs. Just the steady rhythm of work. But it was what they were working on that chilled her.
Large chunks of clear crystal glinted on a sorting table. They glinted like raw diamonds, unmistakable even from this distance. One man lifted a large piece and held it up to the light. It was almost as long as his forearm.
“By the Goddess…” she whispered.
“How much do you want to bet that the crystals are coming out of the ground right here, from that mine?” Kurt growled low.
Even as they watched, a cart was drawn from the mine entrance by a small pony. The contents of the cart gleamed and glinted as it drew closer to the sorting table.
Malea’s jaw tightened. “Those aren’t natural shapes. They’re being cultivated somehow, and the only thing I can think of that could do that is magic.”
“Look at that building behind the sorting table. They take the good ones in there at one end, and I’d say the finished blades come out the other,” Kurt observed quietly.
Even as they watched a man holding an open wooden crate by handles on its sides came out the far end of the small building.
In the crate, they could just make out long, shiny, shards of icy crystal that had been polished and honed to long, sharp points in various configurations.
They watched the man walk toward another area that contained a small forge in which the fire was being built up in preparation for working metal.
“This is where the carts of giant crossbow bolts come. See those crates? I bet those are full of the bolts we saw being forged further south. They bring them here to add the blades,” Malea whispered, taking in the horror of what the men were doing.
“This is both the location of the mine and the place where they finish the weapons,” Kurt said with quiet satisfaction.
“So that’s it then? This mine makes the diamonds and finishes the bolts from the forge we saw earlier that makes the crossbows and the unfinished bolts,” Malea summed it up.
“Just two targets,” Kurt confirmed.
“But only one target that might be safe for the dragons to hit on their own,” Arch said, settling beside them.
“Right,” Kurt agreed. “The other forge doesn’t have the diamond tipped bolts, just the unfinished ones, even though they make the giant crossbows.”
“But this place has both,” Keera reminded them.
“So we need to do something about the diamond blades so they can’t be used against the dragons,” Malea reasoned.
“Or disable the giant crossbows. Or, best case, do both. Either way, we have to do something to make it safer for the ice dragons to strike here. If they try without our doing anything, they could easily be injured or killed. We have to act first,” Kurt said with a determined glint in his eyes.
“And neutralize the mage,” Arch said, surprising them a bit.
“Can you do that?” Malea asked the virkin, surprised by his words.
Arch nodded. “We can do something to stifle his power for a short time. Then the dragons can have their turn.”
“Do you think the weapons are going somewhere else from here?” Malea asked, trying to be thorough.
“There’s no way to know for certain, but it sure looks like they’re stockpiling the things here, at least for now. They probably do plan to ship them on elsewhere, but they have an awful lot of wagons parked on the far side of the camp,” Kurt replied.
Malea peered over the rock at the wagons Kurt pointed out and agreed. “With any luck, they haven’t sent many—or any—out from here yet. If we can destroy them all at once, the dragons will be a lot safer.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to manage that, but if we can make it safe for the dragons to attack, their flame should be enough to melt the crossbows into a puddle,” Kurt told her.
“You’re right,” Arch agreed.
“We nullify the mage. You two have to deny them the diamond weapons somehow. The dragons will do the rest,” Keera chimed in.
“How will the dragons know to come now? Won’t it take us days to get back to them and give them our news? The men can escape in that time,” Malea worried.
“We’ll tell them,” Arch revealed.
“We can talk with them over greater distance than this,” Keera agreed.
“You can?” Kurt asked, clearly as surprised by this revelation as Malea was.
“This is one of those things you were going to learn about us on this mission,” Arch said with a little chuckle, causing a tendril of smoke to rise from his nostrils.
“Just don’t spread the word too far. Our secrets are most useful when they remain mostly secret,” Keera added.
“But you can tell the General and Isolde. And they can tell the King,” Arch allowed magnanimously.
“He’ll tell his mate, but she has secrets of her own. We trust her,” Keera said mysteriously.
*
The walls of the cavern pulsed faintly with inner light, the glow emanating from veins of raw crystal embedded in the rock. Each pulse was in time with the mage’s heartbeat—or perhaps his breath. He could never quite tell anymore.
The earth mage Falkir crouched over a basin of dark water set with silver rings etched in runes no sane man should know. He whispered the incantation again, a rhythmic chant that sent flickers of power through the basin, into the earth, and up through the waiting crystal beds.
The diamonds responded by swelling, clarifying, and lengthening. They shimmered with unnatural brilliance, their shapes far too perfect to have formed by accident.
“Yes…” he muttered, a sick smile twisting his cracked lips. “Grow, you pretty little murderers. Grow strong and sharp. Soon, you’ll taste dragon flesh.”
He stood and wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve already stained by soot, dried blood, and mineral dust. His robes, that had once been rich and showed the status of his station, were tattered now, burned in places by the volatile energies he commanded.
But he didn’t care. Let them mock his appearance. Let them sneer. He would show them all.
The would-be warlord Balrael had no idea what true power looked like.
He was just a brute with the loyalty of Salomar’s castoffs following him around like lapdogs.
Falkir might be small, pale, and hunched from years of working magic underground, but he was the one making this whole enterprise possible.
Without him, there would be no dragon-killing bolts.
No enchanted diamonds. No weapons to make the beasts bleed.
He turned toward the cavern wall, inspecting the latest growth.
The diamond clusters were thick, nearly bursting from the stone.
His spells had improved after all this work.
At first, the results had been brittle, flawed stones that were easily cracked.
But now? Now he could force them to grow long, clear, and deadly sharp.
“Faster,” he whispered, placing his palm against the stone and channeling a jolt of raw intent into the vein. “We don’t have much time. That pig will want more blades before the end of the week.”
The crystals shivered and pulsed in reply, their sharp edges singing a faint, discordant note only he could hear.
Falkir’s smile faded as he stepped back and looked around the mine.
Rough tools. Crude laborers. Soldiers who knew nothing of finesse or art.
The warlord had promised him freedom and wealth.
He’d said Falkir would even have a tower of his own one day, but he didn’t believe a word of it.
He’d stopped believing in Balreal’s lies a long time ago.
Falkir spat on the ground. One day soon, he’d disappear.
He’d slip away and go south to Skithdron.
There, they’d value what he could do. The Mad King had once kept a whole stable of mages, or so the stories said.
They knew the worth of a man who could bend magic to make weapons that could kill dragons.
And when the dragons fall, he thought with grim satisfaction, who will they fear next? He scowled and turned back to his work. The sooner the next batch of crystals were ready. The sooner he could finish this and get away from Balreal, the better.
*
Kurt and Malea rested before they tackled the next part of their task.
They made camp in a small cave the virkin had found.
It was large enough for the horses to fit inside with plenty of room to spare for the humans.
The horses and their gear would be safe enough in the cave while Kurt, Malea and the virkin worked through the night to hamper the people in the mining camp below.