Chapter 2 #2
There are many pitfalls hidden inside the trees and the first rising crags of the mountain challenge even the most confident hikers. The mountain peaks are high enough to have caps of snow but we won’t have to go that high.
I doubt we’ll make it to the first overlook.
The front door of the next cottage groans when I pull it open.
“Anyone home?” I call out and the girl, Emory, slips ahead of me.
“There’s no one here, Miss Morgan!”
Her cry echoes back from the kitchen and I’m halfway out the door again when a slight scuff of footsteps sounds from the attic overhead. Emory’s gaze meets mine, and I jerk my chin.
Minutes later, she returns with one of her classmates in hand and the boy’s father limping along behind them.
The man lost a leg during a skirmish. Unfit to fight, he must have taken to the rafters to hide.
“Found them,” Emory chirps.
My gaze dips to the sword at the one-legged man’s side. Good. We might need his weapon before the day is done. It depends on how quickly we travel, and how effectively we blend.
“Do you have a plan?” The man, Nen, jerks his chin forward to indicate the swelling group of survivors.
“Head for the hills,” I reply as I brush a hand down the front of my shirt. “There are several caves we can easily reach which will put us at a distance from the land mounts.”
Nen huffs out a laugh, the tips of his black hair shaking with the movement. “You’ll be lucky if half these people can make it to the woods.”
I glare at him. “What choice do we have?”
It’s slow going with this many people. Our footsteps are marked, and the march slow. My fingers tremble as I touch the chain around my neck for the hundredth time.
It bows me forward and makes grooves in my bones.
From this position, it’s nearly impossible to make out the details of the fighting field.
We’ve reached a shallow indentation in the land, and the soil gives way softly underfoot.
Further down the slope, a narrow river cuts through green with a stretch of muddy brown and the trails velvety with moss.
On normal days, the water runs clear.
My palms are sweaty and my breath shallow by the time my five-year-old helper reaches for me and twines our fingers together. This is not a normal day. The waters are brown, churning, heralds of a storm we’re yet to see.
“It’s going to be okay, Miss Morgan,” Emory tells me with a gap-toothed grin.
It might yet end with a solid victory for Illonia. Our stance will finally be clear to the King—it’s nothing but the actions of a dictator to tax your people beyond their capacity to pay, all for the benefit of swelling your own coffers.
I do my best to push an answering expression on my face because Emory will notice otherwise. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Several teenagers too young yet to fight help gather the elderly into the shadowy coolness of the woods. There is nothing but the scent of late flowers and sun-warmed grass. The stink of sweaty horseflesh is gone. The clank of metal and steel grows softer and muffled by the leaves.
Lanai continues complaining about the angle of the land leading up to the hilly cave as well as the frantic pace, the state of her knees, and the number of babies crying.
I push it all aside and relegate it to the locked lid box in the back of my mind. Lanai is helped along by several elderly gentlemen, one on either side of her. Nen’s son takes the bulk of his father’s weight, the two of them hobbling along.
The path here isn’t easy to track. Brambles and boxwoods obscure the tamped down trail used by deer and rabbits and children playing games.
Steadily the land rises and the trees grow closer and thicker.
We stop at multiple points to let people rest and every time we do, my panic grows. It’s not far enough.
I turn back to the field below us. The higher we climb, the quieter the woods get until there is no sound of birds flying through treetops. Even the wind holds its breath. The silence is unnerving and looming, watching and waiting for an outcome to this fight.
We manage to gain elevation but the quaking in my knees is ill timed.
The trail winding up to the caves is twisted, and loose gravel and stones threaten to break a few bones if we aren’t careful. I send Emory to the front of the pack and position myself at the tail end of our procession, for protection.
Fifty people. I’ve managed to find fifty people with the rest of our fighters out there struggling to survive.
Will the blood soak into the dirt and grow lush flowers for next year?
“Hurry, hurry,” I mutter, sending each new person on their way.
The caves will do temporarily.
My back bows, and the necklace grows hot, heavy. I slick my tongue over dried and cracked lips. The field is filled with unicorn riders cut through with the sinuous dark figures of the basilisk and their riders. Odious creatures.
Basilisks are huge and impossibly fast snakes, excellent for rocky terrain that unicorns can’t handle. They aren’t as fast as hydras but much stronger and larger. Their tails are strong enough to decapitate or bust through rocks, some of them barbed.
But our herd is trained, and unicorn blood can heal wounds if freely given. Their horns are stronger than steel and the only thing known to break through dragon scales.
We’re prepared.
I suck in a breath and hold it. I have to believe we’re prepared.
The hydras are a different element to consider. With multiple heads and massive poisonous fangs, they’ll eat anything in their path if given half the chance. They might be smaller than most other mounts, but this is no disadvantage. They are fast and scary as the Void when they gather together.
They’re also smart enough to claw at their fangs to gather poison to decorate their claws.
As I watch, several of our riders go down with dying screeches under such an attack. We’re holding our own so far but for how long? My arms quake in time with my legs, and I force myself to look away, to haul over the next ridge of stone.
“Don’t worry, Morgan.” Someone pats my hands, and I tear my attention away from the field to see Lanai at my side. “Your mother knows what she’s doing. I have no doubt she will lead us to victory.”
It’s a different story than the one she told about Illonia before but I’ll take it. I swallow hard, the muscles in my throat constricting and swelling, and force a nod.
“Of course,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster. “She always comes out on top.”
“I remember how hard it was for her when she lost your father. But she’s the kind of woman who always comes back tougher for the disaster. You mark my words.”
Lanai pats me again. The rise evens out into a landing around six feet wide, the mouth of the cave disguised between two ancient boulders.
Emory and Nen enter first, and the rest of our group piles in. The back of the cave extends into the mountainside and gives us enough space to roam, to breathe, without the press of claustrophobia.
One, two, three.
I count heads and pull up short when a shadow passes overhead. The sky darkens unnaturally, and I shut my eyes for a moment against a swell of sickness so strong I clamp down on the urge to vomit.
The dragons are here.
I finally force myself to step outside, to look up.
The last embers of hope die out and leave nothing but ash behind, sodden and terrible ash dragging me into a pit without light. The first bellowing roar from the sky shakes even the roots of the trees around us.
The dragons have joined the battle, turning the tide against us.
There’s no way out of this.
Someone in the caves screams at the sight, and I watch in horror as the horde of so many wings blot out the sun.