Chapter 23 #2
I checked the slopes of the mountains, now tapered off almost entirely into rolling hills.
The sun was casting her violet rays over us at a steep angle, still barely climbing above the horizon.
Soon, the water was not flowing fast enough to beat walking, and the riverbed would become too shallow.
The landscape was also beginning to show more signs of the earthquake’s damage: toppled trees, broken branches, smaller slides of displaced earth and rock.
The tremble had been felt less here, though it had reverberated up the hills and shaken loose the stone avalanche by the outpost. The damage would soon become as severe as it had been at the site of the sky wreck.
“Let’s get out of here,” I suggested quietly. “Day is almost here. We’ll be faster on land now.” It would also get her blood pumping and warm her up again. She had to be getting stiff from lying still, even if I could tell her cheek was still pleasantly, softly warm.
I swam us diagonally across the stream, rising as we hit a rocky bank.
Once out of the water, I gently set her on her feet, my arms lingering around her waist until I was certain she was steady.
“Good? Do you need a fire?” She glanced down, shook the soggy edges of her sleeves and the hem of her thick fur coat, then stomped her feet, which were definitely wet.
“Fire, but we’ll be quick. Tea, change of clothes, food, then we’ll move.
The crashed ship is still hours away, isn’t it?
” she said. I nodded, then handed her my fire starter and the fire-making supplies in their waterproof pouch.
She instantly hunkered down to get to work in a good, dry spot.
As she did, I freed her wet boots from her feet, collected more wood to feed the flames she’d started, and pulled out warm furs to replace the now-wet coat.
As soon as I knew she was eating and brewing a hot drink, I told her I was going to make some kites and slipped away.
It would draw attention from anyone, even Thunder Rock if they saw them, but I hoped the kites would bring the dragon if it was still around.
We were too far away for them to be visible yet, but I’d prefer to have them ready to go as soon as I knew we were in range.
When I came back to Jasmine with my gathered materials, she’d taken off everything wet and replaced what she could.
There were no spare pants, but she’d used smaller pieces of fur to create footcoverings while hers dried.
She’d also pulled on my tunic to replace the drying coat, and wrapped a fur pelt around her middle to stay warm.
She’d even worked the leather to help it stay supple, and was dealing with the edges of her coat now. I smiled, impressed.
“I’ll make the kites while you do that,” I told her, “and then we must move quickly. It’s still far, and we have no idea when or what Msera plans.
” The device was so ancient we had forgotten how to use it, but Corin might know.
Corin wasn’t just good at the things our ancestors left behind; he was also inspired at making things explode.
I’d seen one or two of his concoctions in action before.
The story of how he’d once covered the escape of Zathar and his mate by blowing up the Thunder Rock bathhouse was also a favorite to retell at the campfire at night.
Jasmine was done before I was, her body working through tiredness with the air of someone who’d done it before.
Someone who knew her limits and when to push.
I liked seeing that; it was more proof that we’d work well together.
She repacked everything so it could dry while we walked, and offered me bites of a ration bar as I tied the last string on my pair of kites in place.
The sleara, I discovered, had been tucked into the hood of the tunic she now wore, a perfect little nest hanging over her shoulder.
“Ready,” I agreed, rising to show her the simple pair of small kites I’d built.
They would fly high, and, coated with the shimmering red sap of a tefir plant, be highly visible too.
On strips of light bark, I’d scrawled identical short messages and tied those to the kites’ strings.
“I’ll let the first one up as soon as we reach open terrain. ”
She nodded, her expression grim and worried.
She had to be uncomfortable and cold from the water still clinging to her, but she made no comment as she kicked sand over the small fire she’d built.
Moments later, we were moving, and it surprised me how easily we fell into a comfortable rhythm.
This was urgent, and we were pushing ourselves to move fast, but her short human legs kept up with mine.
She had no issue jogging at a steady pace at my side, sustaining a speed I had not thought possible for a human.
I gave that some thought as we moved, the urgency that had set us on this journey riding us both hard.
Jasmine might be small and not as protected against certain environmental issues as I was, but she had clever solutions for them.
More than that, her body was much stronger than it looked.
Flexible and durable, she wouldn’t slow down a hunting party at all.
The mood became grimmer the closer we got to the plains where the sky wreck had crashed into Serant.
The damage the earthquake had done became more obvious, and once we reached the edge of the first gully, we both paused to look.
That gully was what had started all this, and it had nearly killed her.
“I am glad I found you when I did,” I said, briefly touching her chin.
“So am I,” she said, smiling. Then she pointed at the far horizon, where the edge of a dark shape was only just visible.
“You think they’ll see the kite?” I squinted at the shadow, trying to estimate the distance.
Far, at least four hours away. Jasmine had already turned to resume her jog, likely deciding on her own that we weren’t close enough yet.
“The dragon might see it if he’s patrolling,” I said, pulling free the first kite and releasing it carefully.
The construction would not last, the leafy canopy was fragile and easy to tear, but it might last long enough to be seen.
“I’m going to try.” She halted with a nod, her hand tightening around the bow she held.
It took only a few moments to make it soar, and then I tied it off to a steady branch so it would stay up as long as the wind was strong enough.
She had already jogged off, and I had to push myself to catch up.
“If Msera sees it, he might launch that bomb immediately. We have to hurry,” she told me.
After that, neither of us spoke; we needed all our breath and concentration to travel downhill through the rugged, damaged terrain.