Hatch (The Dragons Of Laton) (37 page)

The boy needed backbone to stand up against those who opposed him in the Hall of Knights, or he’d be over-run and useless as a king. The House of Les had led the DoTarian Empire well with a doggedly determined stubbornness and sheer will. Now more than ever, a strong leader needed to sit on the throne in Laton if they were going to rebuild DoTaria and heal the rift between the Houses. Within a week a gathering of the knights would occur for the first time in over fifty years, and getting the knights to trust a very young Ammon as their king would be a hard battle. Their perception of him as an outsider would only make it even harder. He needed to learn as much as he could about DoTaria as quickly as possible, but without pushing him too hard. He needed to want to learn.

She looked up just as El came out of her bedchambers wearing the blue gown. She was a beautiful girl, and the perfect way to capture the attention of the young lad. She smiled at her granddaughter. Yes, the perfect learning tool!

***

El stormed down the hallway towards Ammon’s chambers, kicking at the dress as she went. The pale blue ruffles bounced and flowed with each stomp, making it all the more elegant. Hard as she tried, it was impossible to appear mad in the frilly outfit, and that made her even angrier. Her grandmother had no right to do this! Ammon’s stupid plan to roam the city worked for one lousy day, and now because of him, she had to wear the stupid dress every time she left her chambers! Each protest she made had been knocked flat by the fierce old woman who suddenly decided El had no business climbing through broken buildings, or fishing, or hunting, or any other activities that would be difficult to do in a dress.

She had lived on the edge of wilderness her entire life, and this wasn’t a change she thought she could, or would adapt to. Why her grandmother suddenly decided to force this upon her was even more frustrating. Until now she was allowed, and even encouraged, to learn how to provide for herself. Sasha had taught her to hunt, fish, and learn what vegetation was useable for food or medicinal purposes. Since the arrival of Ammon and the rest of the strangers from the other side of the mountains, her grandmother had been acting stranger than usual. Asking the old woman inevitably led to more questions than answers. She stopped at the entrance to Ammon’s chambers and tried to quiet her anger. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but it sure was easy to blame him. With a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped into the large sitting room.

***

Standing shirtless in the middle of the room, Ammon held his sword straight out and balanced on his heels. It had been awhile since he’d practiced with the sword because of his injuries, but the training Boris hammered into him came back instantly. Gracefully, he moved from one stance to another, each movement of the sword slicing open one of the many acorns suspended from the ceiling with string.

Fulgid waited patiently as they hit the floor, pouncing and devouring each one with a quick crunch of his golden jaws. With each stroke of the sword, he increased his speed until it was one long flowing movement. When the last few acorns were left, the sword whistled through the air sending most of them bouncing across the floor almost at once. Impaled on the tip of the sword was the last one and Ammon deftly pulled it off and tossed it to Fulgid.

He started to wipe the sweat from his brow and stopped when he realized the tender new skin on his hands had cracked and he was bleeding again. He slipped the sword back into its scabbard as he looked around for something to use as a bandage and saw El leaning against the doorway, her mouth open. Embarrassed, he quickly grabbed his shirt off the back of a chair and pulled it over his head.

El had recovered her composure by the time Ammon turned back around, and now she stood glaring up at him with her fists on her hips. “How do you expect those hands and the rest of your wounds to heal if you keep doing stupid things like that?”

She pointed her finger at a chair, silently ordering him to sit while she rummaged through the bag she was carrying filled with parchments and quills. It was the same bag she used to carry the bandages she frequently had used on Ammon, and there were still several bundles lying at the bottom along with a jar of ointment. Ammon sat quietly as she wrapped his hands and when she was finished, she sat back in her chair and looked at the small pile of paper and quills.

“Well, I suppose you won’t be doing much writing today with those hands. Grandmother will have my head wrapped in a pretty little bonnet at this rate.”

Ammon inspected his hands and flexed them under the bandages before carefully asking. “A bonnet?”

El snorted. “Don’t ask. I wouldn’t do it anyway, not for anyone.”

Ammon recognized the dangerous tone in her voice and decided to divert her attention to something less volatile. “Well, lets go into the city and read more signs then. It’s much more interesting than books anyway.”

El slumped back in the chair. “I can’t.” she said ruefully. “I’m not allowed to wear anything but these horrible gowns!” She gripped the frills across her lap with both hands in dismay. “I’d never be able to walk through the rubble in this!”

Ammon thought for a moment. “What about inside the palace? This place is huge and many of rooms I’ve only glanced at as we searched for slugs. Surely there are things to read like the painting we found?”

El dropped the frills from her hands. “Yes, I suppose there probably is. It’s rather boring, but better than reading The History of DoTaria.” She stood up and gently pulled Ammon to his feet. “Come on, the stairs are just down the hall from here.”

El took one of the torches off the wall, and Fulgid led the way up the stairs to the next level. At the top she pointed down the dusty hallway. “It’s all bed chambers on this floor. During a Gathering there would be more than a thousand knights here at once, although my grandmother told me there hadn’t been one that big in hundreds of years.”

They continued climbing to the next floor where there were rows of similar, but smaller chambers. “These were the chambers for knights awaiting a Hatch. Directly above us are the Nests.”

Ammon’s eyebrows rose. “The Nests are above the palace? How strange! In
Gaul, the Nest is inside a mountain above the city, the palace is some distance away.”

El frowned. “That makes no sense at all! Wouldn’t you want your knights nearby instead of in another building? What would happen if the eggs hatched and they didn’t get there in time?”

Ammon shrugged and scratched his head. “The knights stay all night in the Nest during the new moon, from evening until they’ve all hatched, so that isn’t really an issue. Let’s go see the Nests! I’m curious how different they are from ours.”

It was a short climb up one flight of stairs, and they stood in the middle of a long, wide hallway lined with doors. El opened the closest door and held the torch overhead, its feeble light was swallowed in the darkness. “Let’s try the south wall. I noticed one of the dragon doors were open when we were roaming the city. We should be able to see in there with the daylight shining in.” At the end of the hall a dim light came from beneath one of the doors. El held up the torch as she flipped the rusted latch to the side. “This must be the one!”

Ammon pushed his shoulder against the door and it slid heavily to one side. Cobwebs and dust stirred, and the torch flickered as a small breeze came through the dragon entrance. Leaves and twigs littered the corners from abandoned bird nests, but otherwise the layout of the Nest was similar to the ones in Gaul. A tender’s room was located just inside the door, and beside it were several neatly stacked metal lined buckets. A heavy wrought iron poker and tongs lay in the corner thickly layered with dust. The furnaces in each corner of the room were built of stone and mortar, rather than carved out of rock, and the firebox doors were larger. Like the Hold beneath them, they were designed for firewood rather than coal, and Ammon suspected they worked just as well.

He smiled at El. “I bet there is a beautiful view of the city from up here!” He started to walk around the large sunken area in the center of the floor and as he went past he looked down. He froze so suddenly that El bumped into him and nearly knocked him over.

Taking a quick step backwards she mumbled. “Give a little warning would ya?”

“Give me the torch for a minute!” She started to protest but Ammon cut her short. “Give me the torch!”

She handed it to him and he knelt down and held it over the deep depression in the floor.

El gasped. “Are those…?”

Ammon nodded. “Eggs!”

The ladder had long since rotted away but the iron bolts that anchored to the side were still solid. Ammon handed the torch back to El as he removed his shirt. He twisted it tight, then tied the sleeves to the iron peg and carefully climbed down into the Nest. He ran his hand across each of the eggs and shook his head in disbelief.

“There are twenty-five eggs down here and they’re still warm! They must have just been laid very recently! With everything that’s happened it never occurred to me that it was laying season! We’ve got to get a fire started and bring up the temperature in here in a hurry!”

He scrambled up the side, ran to each of the furnaces and began wrestling with the doors. Two of them opened with force, but the others were hopelessly rusted shut. He grabbed armfuls of sticks from the abandoned bird nests and stuffed them into the furnace then shoved the torch in. The dried twigs burst into flames and he slammed the furnace shut. He dusted his hands off and looked at the huge dragon entrance and frowned. “We’ve got to close that to keep the heat in!”

The huge dragon door hung on massive brass hinges and opened inwards. There was just enough room for Ammon to fit between the wall and the door and he braced his back against the wall and pushed. The door creaked, but barely moved an inch. El dropped the torch and slid next to Ammon. With both of them pushing, it reluctantly began to move, slowly at first and then with a loud snap, the stuck hinges let go and the door swung free. They pushed it shut and jammed a few sticks under the bottom to keep it closed.

Ammon ran to the Tender’s room, dragged out a chair, and smashed it against the floor. As he loaded the pieces into the furnace he turned to El. “Take the torch and find Theo! Tell him we need firewood, lots of firewood…and a blacksmith with tools to fix the other furnace doors! Hurry! If the eggs chill the dragons will die!”

El grabbed the torch and ran down the hall, leaving Ammon to sit in the darkened Nest with Fulgid. The only light he could see was from the cracks around the large dragon doorway, and the two glittering dots of Fulgid’s eyes. He couldn’t help but laugh as he recalled what had happened the last time he was in a Nest. So many things had changed since the day of Fulgid’s hatch. It seemed almost surreal to be tending eggs once more. Fulgid stretched out across his lap and they listened to the wood crack and pop inside the furnace. It was incredibly peaceful.

The serenity of the Nest didn’t last long. Soon Ammon could hear the thumping of footsteps coming down the hallway. With torches held high, El and Theo burst through the door with Derek following closely behind carrying a giant armful of firewood. Ammon stoked the furnaces while Theo and Derek peered down at the eggs in disbelief.

Theo rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen so many eggs in one place before! Ebony flew off this morning with a few other dragons, but I just assumed they went hunting! This far from home I wouldn’t have thought any of them would have laid eggs this season!”

Ammon shrugged. “They must have felt this was close enough to a home for eggs! Anyway, I need to know where I can get a cot and a leather shirt and breeches, and some leather gloves too. These furnaces will have to be cleaned more often than the coal furnaces in
Gaul.”

Theo and Derek exchanged an odd look. Theo cleared his throat noisily. “Ammon…I’m afraid you can’t be a tender to these eggs.”